age  of  a 

n 

ancellor 


Arthur  Everett  Shipley 


AT   LOS  ANGELES 


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S55v   Shipley  - 

The  voyage  of 


a  vice-chancellor. 


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£169 
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THE  VOYAGE 

OF  A 

VICE-CHANCELLOR 


THE  VOYAGE 

OF  A 

VICE-CHANCELLOR 

WITH  A  CHAPTER  ON  UNIVERSITY 
EDUCATION  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 


BY 

ARTHUR  EVERETT  SHIPLEY 

MASTER  OF  CHRIST'S  COLLEGE,  CAMBRIDGE; 
VICE-CHANCELLOR  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY. 
F.R.S.,  SC.D.,  HON.  D.SC.,   PRINCE- 
TON; HON.  LL.D.,  MICHIGAN. 


NEW  YORK 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 
1919 


COPYRIGHT,  1919,  BY 
ARTHUR  EVERETT  SHIPLEY 


GENTI 
INTER  OMNES  GENTES 

HOSPITIBUS 
BENIGNISSIMAE 


9 

M 
i 


S 

i 

a  446447 

I 

Q. 
Q 


Preface 

THE  following  extracts  are  from  a  private 
diary  which  the  author  wrote  whilst  on  an 
extensive  tour  in  the  United  States  during 
the  autumn  of  1918  as  a  member  of  the 
British  University  Mission.  Our  Mission 
had  been  invited  to  the  United  States  by 
the  Council  of  Defense  at  Washington  and 
had  been  sent  out  under  the  auspices  of  the 
British  Foreign  Office.  For  more  than 
sixty  days  we  went  up  and  down  a  vast 
country,  travelling  many  thousands  of  miles, 
and  seeing  so  many  Universities  and  Col- 
leges and  so  many  Presidents  and  Professors 
that  those  amongst  us  who  had  not  hitherto 
had  the  privilege  of  visiting  the  United 
States  formed  the  idea  that  all  its  cities  are 


Vlll 


Preface 


university  cities  and  that  all  the  inhabitants 
are  professors,  an  idea  very  awful  to 
contemplate ! 

As  the  author  has  tried  to  indicate  in  his 
Dedication,  everywhere  we  went  we  met 
with  kindness,  and  kindness  that  came  from 
the  brain  as  well  as  from  the  heart.  But 
especially  we  owe  thanks  to  certain  "guides, 
philosophers,  and  friends"  who  shepherded 
our  steps.  One  of  these,  an  official  of  the 
United  States  Bureau  of  Education  at 
Washington,  accompanied  us  on  the  whole 
tour.  His  extraordinary  powers  of  organiza- 
tion, his  inexhaustible  information,  and  his 
ready  and  self-sacrificing  help,  cannot  be 
too  highly  praised.  Others  who  helped  us 
on  our  trip  were:  the  Secretary  of  the 
Reception  Committee  of  the  Council  (a 
professor  of  Harvard),  who  met  us  on  our 
arrival  at  New  York  and  accompanied  us 
to  Washington,  and  later  to  Boston;  the 
American  Secretary  of  the  Rhodes  Scholars 


Preface  ix 

(a  professor  of  the  Massachusetts  Institute 
of  Technology),  who  guided  us  from  Boston 
to  Chicago.  From  Chicago  to  Minneapolis 
we  had  the  great  advantage  of  the  presence 
of  the  Chairman  of  the  Reception  Commit- 
tee of  the  American  Council  on  Education 
(a  President  of  one  of  the  leading  Colleges 
in  the  Middle  West) ;  and  the  President  of 
the  University  of  Kentucky  travelled  with 
us  from  St.  Louis  to  Lexington,  where  his 
own  University  is  situate.  All  these  gentle- 
men were  ever  ready  and  helpful  in  explain- 
ing the  intricacies  of  American  university 
life.  We  were  fortunate  enough  to  meet 
them  at  many  centres,  and  always  found  the 
same  helpful  advice,  and  care  for  our  wel- 
fare. To  each  and  all  of  them  we  owe  a 
deep  debt  of  gratitude. 

Certain  parts  of  this  Diary  have  appeared 
in  Scribner's  Magazine,  New  York,  and 
others  in  Country  Life,  London,  and  one 
section  entitled  "The  Universities"  has  ap- 


x  Preface 

peared  in  The  Edinburgh  Review.  This  is 
a  more  serious  account  of  the  facilities  pro- 
vided by  the  United  States  for  Higher  Edu- 
cation. It  is,  of  course,  very  incomplete; 
but  it  is  impossible  to  compass  within  a  small 
book  the  immense  variety  of  organization 
and  the  varied  range  of  subjects  the  Mission 
encountered  on  its  voyage.  The  owners  and 
editors  of  these  publications  have  given  the 
author  leave  to  reprint  and  he  thanks  them. 

A.  E.  S. 

St.  George's  Day,  1919. 


"It  is  always  a  writer's  duty  to  make  the  world  better." 

DR.  JOHNSON. 


CONTENTS 

THE  VOYAGE  OF  A  VICE-CHANCELLOR       . '       i 

UNIVERSITY    EDUCATION    IN    THE    UNITED 
STATES 143 


Chapter  I 
The  Atlantic 


"In  the  midst  of  this  sublime  and  terrible  storm,  Dame 
Partington  .  .  .  was  seen  at  the  door  of  her  house, 
with  mop  and  pattens,  trundling  her  mop,  squeezing 
out  the  sea-water,  and  vigorously  pushing  away  the 
Atlantic  Ocean.  The  Atlantic  was  roused.  Mrs. 
Partington's  spirit  was  up;  but  I  need  not  tell  you 
that  the  contest  was  unequal.  The  Atlantic  Ocean 
beat  Mrs.  Partington.  She  was  excellent  at  a  slop, 
or  a  puddle,  but  she  should  not  have  meddled  with 
a  tempest." 

SYDNEY    SMITH,    Speech    on   the   Reform   Bill, 
delivered  at  Taunton,  England,  Oct.  12,  1831. 

September  25th,  1918 

THE  present  passport  is  pink,  printed 
on  pink  paper  with  little  red  lines 
criss-crossing  all  about  it.    Gone — 
and  probably  gone  for  ever — are  those  aris- 
tocratic old  passports  with  fine  lettering  on 
fine  paper,  down  the  face  of  which  ran  a 
stream  of  historic  titles  which,  in  the  two  the 


2  The  Voyage  of 

Government  basely  forced  me  to  surrender  in 
exchange  for  the  present  pink  abomination, 
began  with  a  Marquisate  and  trickled 
through  the  lower  degrees  of  the  peerage  un- 
til one  ended  in  a  Barony  or  two,  and  the 
other  fell  as  low  as  a  Baronetcy.  So  many 
historic  titles  seemed  to  justify  the  "We," 
which  reads  a  little  odd  as,  "We,  Arthur 
James  Balfour."  Each  of  my  old  passports 
was  studded  over  with  "vises"  and  "permis- 
sos"  and  covered  over  with  gorgeous  Russian 
and  Turkish  stamps  and  much  Cyrillic  and 
Arabic  script.  These  I  had  to  give  up  in  ex- 
change for  a  common-looking  paper  marked 
by  a  rubber  stamp  in  violet-blue  ink,  which 
simply  "shouted"  at  the  pink,  with  the  word 
"seen." 

The  older  form  could  be  folded  up  and 
put  away  in  a  pocket-book  and  forgotten  till 
asked  for,  the  new  form  is  bound  up  in  cheap 
green  boards  of  such  a  size  as  to  be  always 
intruding  on  one,  no  matter  how  wide  one's 


A  Vice-Chancellor  3 

pockets  are.  The  old  passport  had  the  reti- 
cence of  a  gentleman  and  was  content  with 
your  signature,  the  new  one  clamours  for  vul- 
gar details  about  your  age  and  personal  ap- 
pearance, and  it  gets  them. 

The  difference  between  passports  ancient 
and  modern  may  be  compared  with  the  dif- 
ference between  a  clean  £5  note,  with  its 
crisp,  white  paper,  fine  lettering  and  the 
romance  of  its  secret  signs,  and  that  modern 
form  of  "filthy  lucre"  the  current  icxr.  note. 

Thursday,  September  26th 

We  arrived  at  our  Port  of  Embarka- 
tion in  a  gale  and  it  continued  to  blow  all  the 
night,  and  all  the  next  day, 

Friday,  September  27th 

during  which  we  wistfully  tried  to 
fulfil  the  divergent  and  incoherent  instruc- 
tions we  had  severally  received  from  the 


4  The  Voyage  of 

Minister  of  Information :  and  it  blew  all  the 
night  of  that  day.    On 

Saturday,  September  28tH 

it  blew  worse  than  ever  and  our  pessi- 
mist, who  is  an  authority  on  weather,  cheered 
us  up  by  assuring  us  that  we  were  embark- 
ing at  the  very  worse  time  of  the  year  and 
that  we  should  have  equinoctial  gales  the 
whole  way  across. 

It  wasn't  so  easy  to  get  on  board.  We 
stood  in  a  vast,  damp,  dreary  dock  in  two 
queues,  saloon  passengers  and  steerage  pas- 
sengers, and  waited  to  have  our  papers  in- 
spected. Our  inspector  was  of  a  slowness 
beyond  words  and  when  at  last  I  was 
getting  near  to  him  I  was  so  angered  by  a 
pompous  man  "on  somebody's  staff"  pushing 
ahead  of  all  of  us  and  engaging  in  an  inter- 
minable conversation  with  our  man,  that  I 
deserted  my  class  and  joined  the  steerage 


A  Vice-Chancellor  5 

group  and  was  on  board  in  five  minutes. 
I  was  a  little  sorry  that  I  did  this  as  I  saw 
a  poor  old  Jamaican  negro  "turned  down." 
Some  one  had  told  him  that  Jamaica  was 
in  America  and  he  had,  with  a  fine  impar- 
tiality, registered  on  one  paper  as  an 
American  citizen  and  on  another  as  a  British 
citizen.  I  wonder  what  became  of  him.  I 
suppose  I  shall  never  know. 

Later  in  the  day  I  had  my  revenge  on 
the  staff  man.  He  turned  out  to  be  a  suc- 
cessful writer  of  the  more  vacuous  forms  of 
revue^  and  he  took  his  art  and  himself  very 
seriously.  After  luncheon  he  changed  his 
tunic  and  put  on  a  Norfolk  jacket  so  that 
down  to  his  waist  his  torso  or  bust  was 
civilian,  whilst  below  his  waist  his  lower 
extremities  were  military.  In  effecting  this 
exchange  something  had  gone  wrong  with  his 
braces  and  all  that  afternoon  and  evening 
he  walked  about  in  a  stately  and  haughty 
way  festooned  behind  with  loops  which 


6  The  Voyage  of 

recalled  the  flowery  swags  of  Mantegna's 
pictures. 

Sunday,  September  29th 

On  Sunday  morning  we  moved  from 
the  dock  into  the  river  and  waited  till  tea- 
time  on  its  muddy  and  rubbish-laden  waters. 
The  wind  had  completely  dropped  and  a 
sabbath-calm  and  a  river-fog  lay  on  every- 
thing. All  day  we  waited  swinging  with 
the  tide  until  about  5  P.M.  when  we  felt 
the  first  delicious  thrill  of  the  engine  at 
work.  All  this  day  large  tenders  laden  with 
hundreds  and  hundreds  of  American  soldiers 
passed  us  going  up-stream  to  the  City  on 
their  way  from  the  troop-ships  lying  further 
down  near  the  mouth  of  the  river. 

On  coming  on  board  on  the  previous  day 
it  became  obvious  that  when  not  on  deck 
we  should  be  living  entirely  in  artificial 
light.  All  windows  and  port-holes  had 


A  Vice-Chancellor  7 

been  made  absolutely  light-proof  and  whilst 
the  public  saloon  and  state-rooms  were  bril- 
liantly lit  up,  no  ray  of  light  was  allowed 
to  leave  them.  After  dark  the  decks  were 
quite  black  and  if  you  groped  on  to  them 
it  was  through  heavy  curtains  and  blackened 
doors.  The  insignificant  glow  of  a  cigarette 
was  strictly  forbidden  and  the  darkness  of 
the  outside  was  infinitely  darker  than  Cam- 
bridge or  even  Norwich  at  its  worst. 

During  the  morning  each  passenger  was 
given  a  Boddy's  Life  Jacket  and  at  4  P.M. 
we  were  paraded  on  Deck  B  and  received 
a  card  indicating  which  boat  was  ours,  and 
to  this  we  went.  An  officer — who  ought  to 
be  a  University  Lecturer — then  in  one  of  the 
clearest,  concisest  and  shortest  of  speeches 
told  us  what  we  were  to  do  in  case  there  was 
need  to  do  anything.  We  were  all  wearing 
the  life-jackets  and  I  had  thought  we  should 
feel  a  little  self-conscious,  if  not  ludicrous, 
but  we  didn't.  It  all  seemed  so  natural,  and 


8  The  Voyage  of 

so  much  in  the  day's  work,  that  one  took  it 
as  though  one  had  worn  such  robes  for  years. 
These  jackets  are  stuffed  with  the  fibres 
known  commercially  as  kapok.  For  the 
following  account  of  this  vegetable  product 
I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  L.  H.  Dewey  of  the 
Bureau  of  Plant  Industry,  Washington, 
whose  letter  I  quote: 

The  name  kapok  is  a  Malay  name,  applied  to 
a  cotton-like  down  produced  in  the  seed  pods  of 
the  kapok,  or  randoe,  tree,  Ceiba  pentandra. 
This  tree  is  native  in  the  West  Indies  and  in 
many  parts  of  tropical  America.  It  has  been 
widely  distributed  in  the  Tropics  of  both  hemi- 
spheres and  is  found  on  many  of  the  tropical 
islands.  In  English-speaking  colonies  it  is 
usually  known  as  the  silk-cotton  tree.  In  Span- 
ish-speaking colonies  it  is  more  often  known  as 
ceiba,  though  the  name  ceiba  is  often  applied  to 
other  species  of  the  genus  Ceiba,  and  often  to 
some  of  the  species  of  the  genera  Bombax  and 
Chorisia. 

The  kapok  tree  was  introduced  into  Java  at 
least  half  a  century  ago,  and  it  is  cultivated 
there  over  large  plantations  in  the  region  of 
Samarang,  and  is  also  grown  along  the  road- 
sides and  borders  of  fields  on  many  plantations 
throughout  the  central  part  of  the  island. 


A  Vice-Chancellor  9 

During  the  past  ten  years  systematic  efforts 
have  been  made  to  set  out  kapok  trees  in  planta- 
tions, and  especially  along  roadsides,  in  the 
Philippines,  and  more  recently  in  Porto  Rico. 
These  newer  plantings,  however,  have  not  yet 
reached  a  stage  of  commercial  importance. 

Nearly  all  of  the  kapok  of  commerce  hitherto 
has  come  from  Java,  and  the  greater  portion  of 
it  has  been  handled  in  the  markets  of  Rotter- 
dam and  Amsterdam,  Holland. 

Kapok  has  been  used  at  least  fifteen  years  as 
the  principal  material  in  stuffing  life  preservers 
and  life  belts  on  the  Dutch  steamships  sailing 
to  the  Orient,  and  also  on  the  North  German 
Lloyd.  I  think  that  it  was  used  on  the  English 
P.  &  O.  Line,  but  I  have  never  been  on  those 
ships  and  have  no  definite  information  on  this 
point.  It  was  used  on  the  other  ships  not  only 
for  life  belts  and  life  preservers  but  also  as  a 
stuffing  for  mattresses  and  pillows.  It  is  a  very 
good  salutary  stuffing  and  serves  the  purpose 
quite  well,  except  that  it  breaks  to  pieces  more 
quickly  than  cotton,  wool,  feathers,  or  hair. 

Kapok  has  been  very  thoroughly  tested  for 
buoyancy  by  the  Government  of  Holland.  I 
think  that  Professor  Van  Iterson,  of  the  Hoch 
Schule  at  Delft,  either  planned  or  was  inter- 
ested in  some  of  these  tests.  The  results  indi- 
cated that  it  was  the  most  buoyant  material 
available  for  various  forms  of  life  preservers. 
Its  buoyancy  depends  on  each  individual  fibre. 
These  are  unicellular  hairs  with  relatively  thin 


io  The  Voyage  of 

walls,  practically  impervious  to  moisture,  and, 
except  under  very  strong  pressure,  each  indi- 
vidual cell  remains  very  distended,  like  a  min- 
iature cigar-shaped  balloon.  In  a  life  preserver, 
therefore,  they  act  like  so  many  millions  of  little 
sacks  of  air. 

Kapok  has  been  treated  specially  and  spun 
experimentally  at  Chemnitz,  Germany,  but  it 
can  not  be  classed  as  a  spinning  fibre.  It  can 
not  be  spun  alone  without  special  treatment  on 
any  machinery  now  made.  The  fibres,  which 
average  scarcely  more  than  IO  mm.  in  length, 
are  not  only  too  short  for  ordinary  spinning 
material,  but  they  lack  "felting"  properties 
necessary  to  make  them  cling  together  so  as  to 
form  a  yarn.  This  very  lack  of  "felting"  prop- 
erties, or  the  property  of  becoming  matted, 
makes  them  especially  valuable  as  stuffing 
fibres.  In  this  respect  a  good  stuffing  fibre  and 
a  good  spinning  "fibre  have  qualities  diametri- 
cally opposed. 

After  this,  even  when  we  had  passed  the 
danger-zone,  we  had  always  to  carry  these 
jackets  with  us  and  as  they  were  white 
oblongs,  with  bold  letters  printed  on  them, 
when  we  passed  one  another  in  the  inspis- 
sated gloom  of  the  companion-  or  alley- 
ways, we  looked  like  ghosts  of  newsvendors 


A  Vice-Chancellor          II 

from  the  happy  days  when  newspaper  pla- 
cards still  existed.  We  clung  to  our  jackets 
as  old  ladies  cling  to  their  white  Shetland 
shawls,  and,  like  the  old  ladies,  we  sometimes 
left  them  about. 

The  same  fibre  is  used  in  stuffiing  comely 
waistcoats  which  are  less  conspicuous  than 
the  "Boddy  Jacket,"  and  there  is  also  a 
waistcoat  whose  buoyancy  depends  on  its 
being  blown  up.  Opinion  varied  as  to  the 
relative  values  of  these  rival  articles.  Hav- 
ing both  I  wore  both,  but  if  I  had  to  choose 
but  one,  I  should  choose  the  "Boddy," 
though  the  wearer  should  know  that  kapok 
is  very  inflammable.  Before  leaving,  how- 
ever, I  had  consulted  a  friend  of  mine,  Dr. 
P.,  who  with  his  wife  had  just  come  back 
from  the  States.  On  the  whole  he  spoke 
well  of  the  blown-up  waistcoat,  at  least  as 
regards  himself,  but  he  added,  "Mrs.  P.  was 
not  so  sure  as  she  was  constantly  deflating." 

One  elderly  steward  had  been  torpedoed 


12  The  Voyage  of 

seven  times  and  .after  taking  to  the  boats 
had  been  seven  times  rescued  by  the  de- 
stroyers. We  naturally  sought  the  advice 
of  so  experienced  an  expert.  "You  don't 
'urry  Sir,  you  don't  'urry,  there's  always 
plenty  of  time."  was  his  sole  and  philosophic 
contribution  to  the  gentle  art  of  being  tor- 
pedoed. Another  somewhat  younger  steward 
handing  round  tea  and  catching  the  last 
glimpse  of  land,  the  north-west  of  Ireland, 
calmly  remarked:  "Well,  this  is  about  the 
place  they  generally  gets  me."  He  had  been 
torpedoed  three  out  of  his  last  four  trips. 

We  must  have  crossed  the  bar  about 
dinner-time,  and  these  two  words  remind  me 
that  in  spite  of  certain  obvious  discomforts, 
there  were  very  substantial  comforts  on 
board.  We  had  left,  as  we  were  told  to  do, 
our  various  ration-coupons  on  the  dock  at 
the  port  of  embarkation,  and  crossing  the 
gangway  arrived  in  a  ship  flowing  with  milk 
and  honey — a  ship  of  sweetness  and  in  parts 


A  Vice-Chancellor         13 

of  light.  We  were  given  white  bread,  lots 
of  cream,  real  butter,  Stilton  cheese,  sugar 
— even  lump  sugar — any  amount  of  mar- 
malade or  jam,  quantities  of  fruit,  not  only 
apples — if  Eva  had  lived  in  1918  I  don't 
believe  she  would  have  wangled  Adam  with 
an  apple — but  grapefruit,  melons,  oranges, 
pears,  grapes,  nuts,  etc.,  etc.  One  couldn't 
help  feeling  with  the  fat  boy  in  Pickwick, 
"How  we  shall  enjoy  ourselves  at  meals." 

We  dropped  down  the  river  that  evening 
in  the  foggy  darkness  and  then! 

Monday,  September  30th 

On  coming  on  deck  on  Monday  I 
came  on  to  one  of  the  most  glorious  and 
fascinating  scenes  I  have  ever  seen.  The 
sun  was  shining  brilliantly,  the  dancing  sea 
was  a  perfect  blue  with  glistening  white 
caps.  To  the  left  lay  Rathlin  Island  and  the 
shimmering  coast  of  Antrim,  to  the  right 


14  The  Voyage  of 

Jura  and  Islay,  a  fitting  and  satisfying 
setting  for  the  centre  of  the  stage  which  was 
occupied  by  our  amazing  convoy.  We  had 
been  told  we  were  the  largest  convoy  that 
had  left  our  shores,  but  then  we  had  been 
told  so  many  things!  Anyway,  here  in  the 
blue  sunshine  and  on  the  dancing  sea  was 
a  score  of  great  ships,  and  such  ships !  They 
were  painted  in  every  colour  of  the  prism 
and  in  every  variety  of  inconsecutive  and 
inchoate  pattern.  Solomon  in  all  his  glory 
was  not  so  variegated  as  any  one  of  these 
amazing  vessels,  though  doubtless  his  colour 
scheme  was  more  coherent. 

To  explain  these  bizarre  and  dazzling 
things  it  is  necessary  to  make  a  brief  excursus 
into  that  manner  of  art  known  as  Cubism. 
I  do  not  propose  to  say  anything  about  the 
Cubfst's  pictures,  for  I  never  could  see  any- 
thing in  them,  but  what  I  conceive  to  have 
happened  is  this :  the  Cubists  (or  perhaps  the 
most  Cubic  of  them)  said  to  themselves, 


A  Vice-Chancellor         15 

"There  are  a  very  large  number  of  average, 
ordinary,  dull  people  in  this  world  who  see 
nothing  in  our  pictures,  therefore  to  those 
people  there  is  nothing  to  see  and  therefore 
to  them  they  are  invisible."  When  the  war 
broke  out  these  Cubists,  who  are  as  patriotic 
as  they  are  commercially  capable,  said,  "If 
to  the  average,  ordinary,  dull  person  our 
pictures  are  invisible,  could  we  not  by  paint- 
ing the  British  ships  in  our  manner  render 
them  invisible,  say,  to  the  commander  of  a 
U-boat  who  in  matters  of  art  probably  is 
an  average,  ordinary,  dull  individual*?"  At 
any  rate  the  Cubists  seem  to  have  got  the 
contract. 

But  however  it  came  about  we  owe  grati- 
tude to  some  one  for  providing  us  with  so 
radiantly  beautiful  a  sight.  At  first  we 
seemed  to  be  moving  in  regular  formation, 
keeping  our  distance  and  our  time,  but  soon 
we  changed  the  formation.  We,  as  it  were, 
now  set  to  partners,  we  advanced  towards 


1 6  The  Voyage  of 

our  neighbours  and  then  coyly  (or  shyly) 
retired;  at  one  time  it  seemed  to  me  we  were 
playing  Roger  de  Coverley,  "up  the  middle 
and  down  the  sides,"  zigzagging  and  pirouet- 
ting across  the  ocean.  The  whole  thing  was 
so  exhilarating,  so  fantastic!  Yet  behind 
its  grotesque  and  fascinating  beauty — which 
put  all  the  scenes  of  Chu  Chin  Chow  or  any 
Granville  Barker  scenery  into  the  shade,  for 
we  were  living,  moving,  vibrating — one  felt 
such  an  amazing  reality  of  Britain's  power 
and  might.  A  sea-plane  flew  over  us,  one  of 
our  own.  I  wish  the  Kaiser  had  been  in  it. 

All  this  time  we  were  encompassed  about 
and  shepherded  by  numerous  destroyers  who 
tore  up  and  down  on  every  side  spying  out 
the  seas.  They  were  not  camouflaged  but 
grey-coloured  and  seemed  so  small  that  one 
felt  that  if  they  had  come  within  reach  one 
could  have  stretched  a  hand  over  the  taffrail 
and  picked  them  up.  We  were  distressed 
that  there  was  no  way  of  thanking  them  for 


A  Vice-Chancellor         17 

their  services.  No  more  monotonous,  more 
dangerous,  more  uncomfortable  life  is  there 
than  that  led  by  all  ratings  on  these  con- 
voying craft.  What  they  do  should  be  more 
fully  and  more  publicly  recognized. 

In  reading  an  unknown  poet,  at  any  rate 
unknown  to  me,  the  other  day,  I  came  across 
a  poem — No.  13 — whose  first  line  so  har- 
monised with  my  views  about  these  wonder- 
ships  that  I  venture  to  quote  it: 

"GLORY  BE  TO  GOD  FOR  DAPPLED 
THINGS." 

Eager  to  know  more  about  one  whose  appre- 
ciations so  happily  coincided  with  my  own 
views  on  "camouflage,"  I  hastily  turned  to 
the  note  contributed  by  our  Laureate: 

Poem  13.  PIED  BEAUTY.  Curtal  Sonnet: 
sprung  paeonic  rhythm.  St.  Beuno's  Tremeir- 
chion.  Summer  "77"  Autograph  in  A. — B 
agrees. 

"Faint  but  pursuing"  for  I  felt  I  must  know 
at  least  who  and  when  my  bard  was,  I 


1 8  The  Voyage  of 

turned  to  the  author's  preface.  He  at  least 
might  know.  Here  I  found  that  poem 
number  13  is  a  Curtal-Sonnet 

constructed  in  proportions  resembling  those  of  the 
sonnet  proper,  namely  6,  4  instead  of  8,  6,  with 
however  a  half  line  tailpiece  (so  that  the  equation 

12  .  o      21          ,. 
is  rather f-  -  —  —  =  tof ) . 

222 

I  had  hoped  to  find  the  personality  of  a  poet, 
but  I  stumbled  against  what  looked  like  an 
equation  of  an  immature  algebraist. 

Tuesday,  October  ist 

We  closed  the  day  in  the  centre  of 
a  marine  fairy  scene,  we  awoke  next  morn- 
ing and  found  we  had  been  dreaming.  A 
cold  wet  morning,  a  heavy  sea,  no  trace  of 
the  convoy,  all  the  ships  scattered  on  their 
several  occasions,  the  destroyers  racing  back 
to  port  only  to  turn  round  and  start  off  again 
to  escort  another  convoy  out. 

Owing  to  my  having  forgotten  to  put  back 


A  Vice-Chancellor         19 

my  watch  over  night  55"  minutes,  I  got  up 
one  hour  before  I  had  meant  to.  This  vexed 
me  quite  a  bit;  first,  because  I  had  to  live 
over  again  an  hour  that  I  had  thought  satis- 
factorily disposed  of,  secondly,  because 
breakfast  was  not  ready,  and  then  I  reflected 
if  this  mischance  had  happened  to  me  in  my 
own  University,  where  I  really  ought  to  have 
been,  how  easily  could  I  have  reached  the 
Senate  House  by  9.30  A.M.  without  any  un- 
due effort.  About  the  time  I  should  have  been 
reading  my  annual  address  to  the  Members 
of  the  Senate  we  passed  a  large  convoy  going 
East. 

It  grew  duller  and  rougher  and  for  the 
rest  of  to-day,  as  the  poet  has  it,  "a  gentle 
pensiveness  my  soul  possessed." 

Wednesday,  October  2nd 

I  think  the  Bishop — for  we  have  a 
Bishop,  and  a  Monsignore  and  a  chaplain, 


20  The  Voyage  of 

and  several  padres,  a  poet,  an  oil-man,  a 
play-writer,  several  members  of  the  Cana- 
dian Siberian  Commission,  lots  of  flying  men 
and  five  Japanese  on  board — in  fact  just  the 
ordinary  crowd  of  men  (there  are  only  men, 
why  aren't  there  children4?)  whom  one  is  used 
to  meeting  on  liners.  The  Bishop  was  argu- 
ing yesterday  that  there  could  be  no  news  if 
there  was  no  one  to  read  it — I  think  the 
Bishop  must  be  an  idealist.  His  talk  re- 
minded me  of  Ronny  Knox's  poem : 

There  was  a  young  man  who  said,  God! 
It  surely  to  you  must  seem  odd 

That  a  tree  as  a  tree 

Simply  ceases  to  be 
If  there's  no  one  about  in  the  quad. 

Well,  to-day  we  received  Monday's 
French  and  American  communiques  and  we 
read  them,  so  there  was  news — and  it  was 
good. 

The  Captain  told  us  that  our  convoy  had 
been  attacked  by  U-boats  but,  as  the  modern 


A  Vice-Chancellor         21 

phrase  goes,  there  was  "nothing  doing."  The 
news  that  we  had  been  attacked  so  cheered 
our  pessimist  that  he  had  an  extra  course  at 
lunch. 


Thursday,  October  3rd 

The  worst  of  travelling  in  a  boat 
primarily  designed  for  freight,  and  which 
is  carrying  no  freight — we  had  barely  a 
hundred  tons  on  board — is  that  the  thing 
becomes  light-headed.  There  was  a  heavy 
swell,  and  all  Wednesday  night  and  all 
to-day  we  have  bobbed  about  in  a  most  out- 
rageous manner.  Still  to-day  the  sun  is 
shining.  I  have  a  great  sympathy  with  those 
folk  who  worship  the  sun.  We  sighted  a 
ship  and  immediately  turned  and  fled  north. 
Evidently  the  neighbourhood  of  ships  in 
these  waters  is  unhealthy. 

About  the  fourth  day,  from  the  upper  deck 
or  the  ship's  bow,  we  begin  to  see  floating 


22  The  Voyage  of 

patches  of  seaweed — gulf  weed,  or  sargasso 
(Sargassum  bacciferurn),  as  it  is  called.  For 
the  most  part  this  appears  as  single  stems  or 
in  small  rounded  heads,  yellow-brown  or 
olive-green,  awash  with  the  surface.  But,  as 
we  proceed  southward,  larger  masses  appear. 
William  Beebe  gives  the  following  ac- 
count of  the  gulf  weed  in  The  Atlantic 
Monthly  (October,  1918,  p.  477): 


An  amazing  amount  of  fiction  and  nonsense 
has  been  written  about  the  sargasso-weed,  but 
the  truth  is  actually  more  unbelievable.  Though 
we  see  it  in  such  immense  patches,  and»  although 
for  days  the  ocean  may  be  flecked  with  the  scat- 
tered heads  of  the  weed,  yet  it  is  no  more  at  home 
in  mid-ocean  than  the  falling  leaves  in  autumn 
may  claim  as  their  place  of  abode  the  breeze 
which  whirls  them  about,  or  the  moss  upon  which 
at  last  they  come  to  rest.  Along  the  coast  of 
Central  America  the  sargasso-weed  grows,  on 
coral  and  rock  and  shell,  flowering  and  fruit- 
ing after  its  lowly  fashion.  The  berry-like  blad- 
ders with  which  the  stems  are  strung  are  filled 
with  gas,  and  enable  the  plants  to  maintain  their 
position  regardless  of  the  state  of  the  tide.  Vast 


A  Vice-Chancellor         23 

quantities  are  torn  away  by  the  waves  and  drift 
out  to  sea,  and  these  stray  masses  are  what  we  see 
on  every  trip  south,  which,  caught  in  the  great 
mid-ocean  eddy,  form  the  so-called  Sargasso  Sea. 
The  weed  along  the  coast  is  honest  growth, 
with  promise  of  permanence.  The  great  floating 
Sargasso  Sea  is  permanent  only  in  appearance; 
and  when  finally  the  big  masses  drift,  with  all 
their  lesser  attendant  freight,  into  the  Gulf 
Stream,  then  life  becomes  a  sham.  There  can 
be  no  more  fruiting  or  sustained  development  of 
gas-filled  berries.  No  eggs  of  fish  or  crabs  will 
hatch,  no  new  generation  of  sea-horses  or  mol- 
lusks  appear  among  the  stems.  Bravely  the 
fronds  float  along ;  day  by  day  the  hundred  little 
lives  breathe  and  feed  and  cling  to  their  drifting 
home.  But  soon  the  gas-berries  decay,  and  the 
frond  sinks  lower  and  lower ;  as  the  current  flows 
northward,  and  the  water  becomes  cooler,  the 
crabs  move  less  rapidly,  the  fish  nibble  less  eag- 
erly at  the  bits  of  passing  food.  Soon  a  sea- 
horse lets  go,  and  falls  slowly  downward,  to  be 
snapped  up  at  once  or  to  sink  steadily  into  the 
eternal  dusk  and  black  night  of  deeper  fathoms. 
Soon  the  plant  follows  and,  like  all  its  chilled 
pensioners  dies.  The  supply  from  the  Sargasso 
Sea  seems  unfailing,  but  one's  sympathies  are 
touched  by  these  little  assemblages,  so  teeming 
with  the  hope  of  life,  all  doomed  by  the  current 
which  is  at  once  their  support,  their  breath,  and 
their  kismet. 


24  The  Voyage  of 

Friday,  October  4th 

Wet,  warm,  with  a  sticky  moisture, 
and  still  very  rough.  I  think  this  way  we 
must  have  passed  through  a  cyclone.  About 
luncheon  time  the  sea  and  the  wind  simply 
seemed  to  lose  all  control  over  themselves. 

They  raged  like  the  heathen,  and  we  tossed 
and  pitched  more  than  ever.  At  dinner- 
time things  began  to  improve  and  for  some 
three  hours  it  was  merely  rough,  then  the 
whole  thing  began  over  again  and  half  the 
night  or  more  was  a  pandemonium  of  noise 
and  turmoil. 


Saturday,  October  5th 

The  sea  is  still  very  rough,  but  the 
air  is  dry  and  the  sun  shines.  This  is  an 
immense  improvement  and  the  berths  are 
beginning  to  give  up  their  dead.  They  say 
we  are  south  of  the  Newfoundland  Banks. 


A  Vice-Chancellor         25 

Sea-weed  is  again  drifting  about,  probably 
on  its  long  journey  from  the  Sargasso  Sea. 

In  the  afternoon  we  saw  a  balk  of  timber 
slithering  up  and  down  the  climbing  waves. 
It  filled  me  with  a  sense  of  unutterable  lone- 
liness. What  was  it  doing  in  this  limitless 
waste  of  waters'?  Whence  had  it  come? 
Whither  was  it  going"?  Why1?  What  would 
be  its  future?  Probably  months  of  restless 
tossing  accompanied  by  an  ever-increasing 
water-loggedness  until  it  slowly  sinks  to  the 
abysmal  bosom  of  the  "benthos"  to  form  a 
resting-place  for  deep-sea  barnacles  to  nestle 
on  and  a  shelter  under  which  chaetopods 
can  creep. 

Sunday,  October  6th 

The  weather  is  worthy  of  the  day, 
warm,  without  winds,  brilliant  sunshine  and 
a  low,  slow  swell.  We  passed  a  Belgian 
relief  ship  so  beautifully  camouflage  that  it 


26  The  Voyage  of 

looked  twice  as  far  off  as  the  Captain  said 
it  was. 

Morning  service  (Matins)  was  at  10.30. 
Acting  on  the  dictum  of  the  Bishop  that  the 
only  pleasure  in  life  that  never  palls  is 
stopping  away  from  Sunday  morning  church, 
I  stopped  away  and  went  on  with  my  writ- 
ing, but  I  was  represented  at  the  service  by 
the  Boy  who  also  acted  as  organist  and 
played  "God  Save  the  King"  and  three 
hymns.  Cuthbert,  who  wasn't  feeling  quite 
up  to  it,  also  stayed  away.  He  has  not  been 
down  to  a  meal  since  we  left  the  river  of  the 
port  of  embarkation ! 

In  the  afternoon  the  washing  came  back. 
The  shortage  of  starch,  which  has  so  agitated 
the  Episcopal  Bench  at  home,  is  evidently 
not  felt  in  this  wonderful  ship. 

Monday,  October  yth 

All  night  it  has  been  stiflingly  hot  and 


A  Vice-Chancellor         27 

as  we  must  not  open  a  port-hole  it  has  been 
rather  oppressive.  At  six  o'clock  it  suddenly 
began  to  blow,  quite  suddenly  and  with  a 
noise  like  the  opening  of  an  exhaust  pipe. 
The  steward  informs  us  that  the  sky  is  full 
of  "mouse's  tails,"  a  cryptic  but  ominous 
utterance. 

The  Captain — we  don't  see  much  of  the 
Captain — told  us  that  he  had  had  to  cut  off 
ten  feet  of  the  distal  end  of  his  masts  in 
order  that  his  ship  may  pass  under  the  Grand 
Trunk  and  Intercolonial  Railway  Bridge, 
which  is  at  last  in  position  above  Quebec. 
I  am  not  an  expert  on  masts  and  they  look 
to  me  very  well  as  they  are,  but  he  evidently 
resents  his  loss  and  has  a  bit  of  a  grudge 
against  the  Railway  Companies. 

Every  morning  I  read  a  daily  portion  of 
Professor  G.  E.  Maclean's  excellent  "Studies 
in  Higher  Education  in  England  and  Scot- 
land." I  was  pleased  this  morning  to  come 
across  the  following  lines: 


28  The  Voyage  of 

The  duties  of  the  Vice-Chancellor  at  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  are  so  numerous  and  complex 
that  it  is  not  unusual  for  his  health  to  break 
down,  though  his  term  of  office  is  only  two  or 
four  years. 

There  is  probably  during  term  time  no  more 
harder  worked  official  in  the  United  Kingdom. 

I  wish  I  did  not  feel  so  well ! 


Tuesday,  October  8th 

A  very  rough  night,  the  screw  con- 
stantly racing  out  of  the  water  and  jarring 
one  out  of  one's  sleep.  To  those  who  like 
myself  sleep  very  slowly  this  was  a  bit  of  a 
nuisance,  but  joy  came  in  the  morning.  At 
sunrise  the  turmoil  abated  and  we  had  a 
day  of  brilliant  sunshine,  tempered  by  a  cool, 
north-easterly  breeze. 

This  morning  we  got  Cuthbert  on  deck 
and  he  sat  in  the  Bishop's  deck  chair  for 
some  hours.  I  think  the  sun  and  the  fresh 
air  did  him  good.  He  is  certainly  eating 
better. 


A  Vice-Chancellor         29 


Coming  up  towards  Sandy  Hook  on  a 
perfectly  placid  sea  we  were  blessed  with 
just  that  amount  of  haze  which  turned 
Coney  Island  into  Venice,  the  sea  into  an 
Adriatic  lagoon.  We  might  have  left  Trieste 
overnight !  The  same  merciful  mist  changed 
the  clear-cut  outlines  of  the  sky-scrapers  into 
Turner's  pictures,  and  the  Boy  and  the  Poet 
became  ecstatic  with  the  ecstasy  of  youth. 
On  landing,  the  joy  of  Cuthbert  and  the  Boy 
on  being  again  on  "terra  firma,"  for  New 
York  is  built  on  bed  rock — a  very  sustaining 
form  of  Gneiss,  known  as  Manhattan  Gneiss, 
capable  of  bearing  great  burdens  or  what 
would  the  skyscrapers  do,  poor  things'? — 
was  so  great  that  they  waltzed  along  the 
dock  until  they  reached  their  respective  in- 
itials and  awaited  with  such  patience  as  they 


30  The  Voyage  of 

could  command   the  official  visits  of  the 
officers  of  the  Customs. 

Everything  was  made  easy  for  us  and  that 
evening  we  began  the  series  of  ceaseless  kind- 
linesses and  unbounded  hospitalities  which 
continued  all  our  trip. 


A  Vice-Chancellor         31 


Chapter  II 
The  States 

"If  'these*  two  creatures  grew  into  one 
They  would  do  more  than  the  world  has  done." 
BROWNING,  The  Flight  of  the  Duchess. 

Thursday,  October  loth 

LAST  night  it  was  broken  to  me,  in 
the  kindest  possible  way,  in  sympa- 
thetic terms  which  could  not  be  more 
"tenderer,"   if  we  may  quote  Mr.  Weller 
Senior,  that  I  am  to  be  painted  for  the  Har- 
vard Club.     This  morning  I  gave  the  first 
sitting  at  a  charming  studio  in  Gramercy 
Park.    I  am  not  one  who  usually  laughs 
much  before  noon,  but  the   artist  was  so 
amusing  and  so  bright  that  we  hardly  quit 


32  The  Voyage  of 

laughing  from  9  to  11  A.M.  The  studio  is 
decorated  by  a  portrait  on  a  large  scale  of  the 
four  Harvard  Professors  of  Philosophy, 
Royce,  Wm.  James,  Parker  and  Miinster- 
berg.  The  last-named  is  represented  by  an 
empty  chair.  It  seems  that  his  habitual  in- 
solence and  "overbearichkeit"  was  a  bit  more 
than  the  artistic  temperament  could  stand. 
After  a  few  sittings  he  was  asked  to  leave  the 
studio  and  to  stay  away. 

The  following  is  queer  but  true.  When 
it  became  clear  that  the  United  States  were 
about  to  enter  the  war,  Miinsterberg  peti- 
tioned the  authorities  to  intern  him — one 
wishes  one  could  spell  it  without  the  "n" — 
in  the  Cambridge  gaol,  as  he  thought  that 
there  his  food  supply,  always  an  important 
item  in  a  German's  outlook,  could  be  more 
generously  supplemented  than  elsewhere. 

We  dined  at  the  Century  Club  with  its 
members  and  made  speeches. 


A  Vice-Chancellor         33 
Friday,  October  nth 

Raising  the  liberty  loan  has  clothed 
Fifth  Avenue  in  a  mass  of  bunting,  each 
section  being  devoted  to  one  of  the  Allies. 
The  effect  is  very  brilliant  as  the  flags 
flutter  in  the  sunny,  clear  breeze. 

Cuthbert  is  very  much  disappointed  that 
he  did  not  arrive  in  time  to  assist  at  the 
unveiling  of  the  heroic  bronze  statue  of 
Mr.  Chauncey  M.  Depew,  which  the  ex- 
Senator  has  presented  to  his  native  town. 
Mr.  Depew  delivered  the  unveiling  and 
unfailing  dedicatory  oration.  The  advan- 
tage of  these  proceedings  is  obvious.  There 
will  be  for  instance  no  need  now  to  get 
together  a  Chauncey  M.  Depew  Memorial 
Committee.  No  one  will  have  to  equate  in 
terms  of  cash  the  nicely  balanced  more  or 
less  of  his  esteem  for  the  ex-Senator,  with 
his  duty  to  the  Liberty  Loan.  That  peren- 
nial source  of  difference,  marble,  bronze  or 

8 


34  The  Voyage  of 

lead  is  eliminated.  Bronze  it  is,  and  bronze 
is  as  durable  as  brass.  Mr.  Chauncey  M. 
Depew  pronounced  the  eulogy  himself,  and 
no  one  could  have  done  it  better.  A  man, 
even  a  politician,  is  very  conscious  of  his  own 
virtues,  and  no  ex-Senator  can  be  charged 
with  that  lack  of  appreciation  of  the  subject 
of  his  memorial  statue  which  is  often  met 
with  in  unveiling  orations  on  post-mortem 
inaugurations.  We  shared  Cuthbert's  disap- 
pointment. 

Dined  with  the  members  of  Harvard 
University  at  their  splendid  Club  and  made 
speeches. 

Saturday,  October  I2th 

To-day,  being  Liberty  Day,  Mr. 
Wilson  put  on  a  black  coat  and  a  top-hat 
and  marched  with  an  interminable  pro- 
cession down  Fifth  Avenue.  I  saw  it  soon 
after  ll  A.M.  and  again  about  4  P.M.  and 


A  Vice-Chancellor         35 

for  all  I  know  it  may  still  be  marching.  The 
whole  thing  was  impressive,  but  the  "mo- 
ment" was  the  passing  of  the  President 
carrying  a  small  flag.  One  could  not  help 
reflecting  on  the  power  of  good  it  would  do 
if  the  Pope  would  put  on  a  black  coat  and 
a  top-hat  and  walk  down  the  Corso.  Such 
things  seem  to  bring  folk  together. 

Dined  with  the  New  York  Schoolmasters 
at  the  Aldine  Club,  down-town,  and  made 
speeches.  After  dinner  went  to  the  Audi- 
torium, away  up-town,  and  made  more 
speeches.  At  5.30  P.M.  on  this  day  there  was 
not  in  this  Continent  a  soul  more  keen  about 
Liberty  than  I  was,  but  by  10.30  P.M.  I  had 
weakened  quite  a  bit.  I  had  listened  to 
eighteen  speeches  on  the  subject  and  deliv- 
ered two.  I  sympathized  with  Patrick  Henry 
who  exclaimed  after  marrying  his  second 
wife,  "Give  me  Liberty  or  give  me  Death;  I 
prefer  Death." 


36  The  Voyage  of 

Sunday,  October  I3th 

Motored  some  forty  miles  up  the 
Hudson,  a  brilliant  day  in  all  senses.  Dined 
with  the  Rhodes  Scholars  at  the  Harvard 
Club  and  made  speeches. 

Monday,  October  I4th 

As  our  newspapers  say  when  the 
House  of  Commons  has  an  all-night  session, 
I  am  "still  sitting"  to  my  artist.  I  took 
Cuthbert  to  see  her  and  the  two  got  on  very 
well  together.  We  left  in  the  afternoon  for 
Washington  and  dined  on  the  train.  We 
made  no  speeches. 

Tuesday,  October  I5th 

During  the  afternoon,  President 
Wilson  received  us  and  very  cordially  asked 
us  to  lunch  on  Thursday,  October  lyth. 
After  leaving  him  we  spent  a  couple  of  hours 


A  Vice-Chancellor         37 

with  Bishop  Shahan  at  the  Roman  Catholic 
University  where  amongst  many  things  we 
saw  was  a  fully  equipped  and  entirely  mod- 
ern Chemical  Laboratory,  as  large  or  almost 
as  large  as  any  in  Great  Britain.  In  this 
worked  monks  and  priests  of  most  of  the 
religious  orders. 

Wednesday,  October  i6th 

After  a  Conference  on  Education  in 
the  morning  with  the  authorities  of  the 
War  Department  we  embarked  on  the 
Admiralty  yacht  Sybil  and  left  for  Mount 
Vernon.  It  was  a  perfect  autumn  afternoon 
and  the  brilliancy  of  the  fading  autumn 
leaves  was  reflected  in  the  still  waters  of  the 
Potomac.  Their  colours  were  so  blended 
that  we  could  only  wonder  at  the  beauty  of 
the  scene,  but  our  hosts  were  by  no  means 
satisfied.  They  apologized  for  the  absence 
of  certain  red  tints,  this  they  attributed  to 


446447 


38  The  Voyage  of 

a  cold  spell  in  September  which  had  caused 
the  fading  foliage  to  skip  one  stage  in  its 
colour  diminuendo.  As  has  been  pointed  out, 
"there's  beauty  in  the  colour  of  decay,"  but 
it  was  obvious  that  there  is  more  beauty  if 
the  decay  be  gradual  and  not  unduly  has- 
tened by  cold  spells. 

As  we  came  opposite  to  Washington's 
house,  the  flag  was  lowered,  a  bell  tolled  and 
the  ship's  bugler  sounded  the  "Last  Post." 
A  naval  officer  on  the  Sybil  told  me  that  this 
touching  tribute  to  a  great  gentleman  dated 
back  to  1812  when  the  British  Admiral  of  a 
fleet  sent  to  fight  Washington's  countrymen, 
as  his  ships  passed  Mount  Vernon  on  their 
way  up  the  Potomac  to  shell  the  Federal 
Capital,  gave  the  order  to  salute  the  grave  of 
the  first  President  with  this  usage,  which  has 
ever  after  been  followed.  Well,  sailors  al- 
ways were  gentlemen.1 

The  charm  of  the  house,  of  the  garden,  of 
1  Germans  alone  excepted. 


A  Vice-Chancellor         39 

the  several  views  both  inland  and  riverwards 
was  multiplied  by  the  beauty  of  the  after- 
noon, and  we  left  as  sundown  was  setting  in, 
with  buzzards  circling  over  us  and  a  solitary 
blue  heron  standing  on  one  leg  on  a  grassy 
islet  near  the  landing-stage. 

We  dined  that  night  with  the  Assistant 
High  Commissioner  of  our  country  and  the 
only  speeches  were  two  quite  short  ones  to 
explain  there  were  to  be  no  speeches. 

Thursday,  October  iyth 

To-day  we  lunched  with  the  Presi- 
dent and  Mrs.  Wilson.  Both  were  extremely 
cordial  and  friendly  and  did  us  the  quite 
unusual  honour  of  granting  us  two  hours  of 
their  much  occupied  time.  Later  some  of 
us  visited  the  Carnegie  Institute  and  tried  to 
grasp  the  almost  incredible  variety  of  its 
many  activities  and  the  quite  incredible  num- 
ber of  dollars  it  administers. 


40  The  Voyage  of 

Later  in  the  day  the  Trustees  of  the  Car- 
negie Institute  gave  a  banquet  at  the  Wash- 
ington Hotel  where  we  met  a  couple  of 
hundred  of  the  most  distinguished  men  in 
Washington.  Here  the  speeches  reached  a 
climax,  for  they  began  with  the  melons.  I 
made  an  after-dinner  speech  before  the  soup 
was  served,  and  had  to  leave  out  quite  a  lot 
of  points.  Whenever  the  band  paused  for  a 
moment  some  one  made  a  speech,  and  there 
were  so  many,  and  so  many  of  us  lacked 
what  the  Railway  folk  call  "terminal  facili- 
ties" that  we  had  well-nigh  three  hours  of 
speeches.  But  it  was  all  so  kindly  and  so 
friendly  that  it  won  our  hearts. 


This  morning  we  went  to  Baltimore, 
and  here  perhaps  we  came  across  more 
evidence  of  the  terrible  plague  which  this 
autumn  is  decimating  the  land  than  we  had 


A  Vice-Chancellor          41 

till  now  met  with.  Hitherto  I  have  not  men- 
tioned it,  but  even  on  the  dock  at  New  York, 
the  Head  of  the  British  Mission  in  New 
York  City  had  told  us  something  of  the  ex- 
tent and  virulence  of  the  scourge,  a  very  fatal 
form  of  influenza  followed  in  many  cases  by 
a  still  more  fatal  form  of  pneumonia.  That 
very  morning  two  of  his  clerks  had  died.  On 
one  day  there  were  750  deaths  from  this 
plague  in  New  York  City  alone.  The  Sec- 
retary of  State  at  Washington  had  given  me 
an  appalling  list  of  the  deaths  amongst  the 
families  of  the  Diplomatic  Corps  in  Wash- 
ington; no  Embassy,  no  Ministry,  had  es- 
caped. 

One  saw  in  Washington  folks  walking 
about  the  streets  wearing  white  masks,  some- 
thing like  gas-masks.  In  the  barbers'  shops 
all  the  attendants  wore  masks,  but  the  supply 
of  them  was  totally  inadequate.  The  medical 
and  nursing  profession,  greatly  depleted  by 
the  war,  practically  broke  down.  At  Balti- 


42  The  Voyage  of 

more,  although  no  one  spoke  much  about  it, 
we  heard  gruesome  stories  of  a  little  girl 
found  shaking  in  a  cupboard  whither  she  had 
fled  after  the  death  of  both  parents  and  all 
her  brothers  and  sisters;  of  the  bodies  of  a 
man  and  his  wife  found  alone  in  a  house 
eight  days  after  their  death.  It  was  as  it 
were  living  through  the  pages  of  Daniel  De- 
foe. The  day  before  we  reached  Baltimore 
250,  including  some  of  the  more  brilliant  of 
the  young  Johns  Hopkins  teachers,  had  died. 

At  Philadelphia,  with  a  population  of  some? 
thing  under  two  million,  there  had  already 
been  250,000  cases.  All  theatres,  churches, 
"movie"-shows,  and  saloons  were  closed.  No 
assemblage  of  more  than  twenty-eight  per- 
sons was  permitted.  The  undertakers  and  the 
authorities  at  the  cemeteries  were  unable  to 
deal  with  the  dreadful  condition  that  pre- 
vailed. Thousands  of  bodies  lay  unburied, 
and  owing  to  the  national  feeling  about  fun- 
erals the  people  would  not  adopt  the  natural 


A  Vice-Chancellor         43 

and  hygienic  expedient  of  burying  their  dead 
in  cloaks  or  in  sheets.  An  old  friend  of  mine, 

Lady ,  told  me  at  Washington  that  she 

had  just  buried  her  nephew  at  Philadelphia 
and  had  to  pay  £40  for  a  coffin  which  took 
three  days  to  deliver. 

So  great  was  the  need  of  help  at  the 
necropolis  at  Philadelphia  that  the  Admiral 
in  command  of  the  shipbuilding  yards  at 
Hog  Island  sent  over  two  of  his  excavators 
to  dig  two  great  common  graves.  After 
some  hours  he  was  informed  that  there  was 
no  one  to  direct  his  men  where  to  dig  or  to 
register  the  dead  or  indeed  to  do  anything. 
Although  he  made  no  charges,  yet  he  found 
some  outside  person  was  taking  money.  He 
telephoned  to  the  Archbishop — in  America 
you  telephone  to  anyone — to  say  that  unless 
someone  in  authority  took  charge  within  two 
hours  he  would  recall  his  excavators,  and 
somehow  something  was  arranged. 

In  the  State  of  Connecticut  the   "jail- 


44  The  Voyage  of 

birds"  were  requisitioned  and  detailed  to  dig 
graves.  The  epidemic  has  been  most  fatal  in 
the  military  and  the  naval  camps.  Already 
it  has  claimed  a  greater  number  of  victims 
in  the  army  and  the  navy  than  the  total  casu- 
alties in  the  war. 

In  spite  of  the  grief  and  sorrow  which  we 
could  not  but  note  in  our  hosts'  faces,  they 
received  us  with  a  brave  front.  Naturally, 
we  felt  keenly  that  at  a  time  of  such  national 
woe  we  ought  not  to  be  intruding,  but  per- 
haps after  all  we  could  do  "no  other"  and  so 
they  and  we  simply  "carried  on"  and  talked 
on  other  matters. 

At  Baltimore  we  visited  the  new  Univer- 
sity buildings  of  Johns  Hopkins,  new  since  I 
had  been  there,  a  fine  set  of  libraries  and  lab- 
oratories built  of  a  pleasant  light  red  brick 
with  ample  windows.  There  had  been  the 
usual  fight  between  the  people  who  were  to 
use  the  buildings  and  the  architects.  Here 


A  Vice-Chancellor         45 

/ 

the  Professors  won,  for  in  Johns  Hopkins  the 
university  rooms  and  windows  are  large  and 
let  in  floods  of  light. 

We  lunched  at  the  Country  Club  beside 
the  Golf  Course  and  made  speeches.  So 
many  speeches  did  we  make  that  it  was  4 
P.M.  before  we  rose  to  hurry  off  to  an  inter- 
view which  Cardinal  Gibbons  had  promised 
us.  His  Eminence  was  a  refined  and  kindly 
old  gentleman,  84  years  of  age,  yet  with 
strength  and  courage  and  truth  in  his  face, 
just  the  sort  of  saint  to  steady  the  nerves  and 
bring  hope  to  the  heart  of  a  sorely  stricken 
and  largely  ignorant  population.  He  told 
us  that  he  was  the  youngest  prelate  at  the 
Vatican  Council  in  1870,  arid  that  now  he 
was  the  oldest  Roman  Catholic  bishop  alive. 
He  also  told  us  that  the  celebrations  in 
honour  of  the  Jubilee  of  his  election  to  the 
Bench,  which  were  just  due,  had  been  post- 
poned owing  to  the  pestilence,  and  somehow 


46  The  Voyage  of 

he  gave  me  the  impression  that  he  was  not 
altogether  sorry. 

The  Boy  visited  the  tomb  of  Edgar  Allen 
Poe  in  the  heart  of  the  city,  and  thought  it 
needed  care. 

We  were  "off  to  Philadelphia"  in  the 
evening. 

Saturday,  October  ipth 

Motored  to  the  studio,  in  the  Univer- 
sity, of  Tait  Mackenzie,  whose  sculptures 
go  from  strength  to  strength.  He  is  modelling 
a  group  of  men  going  over  the  top,  the  finest 
war  memorial  I  have  yet  seen.  Later  we  vis- 
ited the  University  Art  Museum,  full  of 
beautiful  things,  beautifully  displayed.  The 
Museum  has  a  circular  auditorium  of  novel 
and  stately  proportions  and  with  perfect 
acoustic  properties.  We  lunched  at  Houston 
Hall  with  the  faculty  and  made  innumerable 
speeches.  One  by  the  Provost,  a  very  charm- 


A  Vice-Chancellor         47 

ing  Provost,  contained  some  quite  plain 
speaking  about  the  way  the  old  Universities 
in  Great  Britain  had  kept  their  doors  shut  to 
foreign  students;  this  and  further  criticism 
after  dinner,  when  we  all  spoke  over  again, 
has  set  us  all  thinking.  I  had  hoped  that  in 
a  Quaker  City  one  would  not  speak  unless  the 
spirit  moved  one,  but  the  "attendant  spirit" 
in  the  form  of  the  Provost  was  always  with 
us  and  was  always  moving  us. 

In  the  afternoon  we  motored  to  the 
Quaker  College  of  Swarthmore,  a  co-educa- 
tional institution  in  which  the  education  is 
by  no  means  left  out.  As  in  other  places,  the 
buildings  were  set  on  a  hill,  in  vast  grounds, 
and  equipped  lavishly;  for  instance  there  is 
a  large  open-air  theatre,  a  fine  swimming 
bath  and  an  observatory  with  a  24  in.  lens 
telescope,  a  finer  instrument  than  exists  in 
Ireland,  as  our  astronomical  member  told 
us,  and  many  other  features  hard  to  find  in  a 
boys'  or  girls'  College  in  our  country. 


48 


Sunday,  October  20th 

Spent  part  of  the  morning  at  Tait 
Mackenzie's  studio  in  his  charming  home. 
The  Boy,  who  has  for  some  days  been 
suffering  from  suppressed  music,  obtained  a 
certain  temporary  measure  of  relief  at  their 
grand  piano. 

In  the  afternoon  we  visited  some  dear  old 
colonial  churches  in  which  Washington  wor- 
shipped and  then,  by  way  of  contrast,  went 
to  a  great  magnate's  palace  and  saw  the  finest 
private  collection  of  pictures  I  have  ever  seen. 
Rembrandt's  "Mill,"  recently  bought  from 
Lord  Lansdowne,  hangs  in  the  galleries.  This 
is  regarded  by  Bode,  who  has  lately,  we  are 
told,  been  organizing  the  artistic  looting  of 
the  invaded  countries,  as  the  most  perfect 
picture  in  the  world,  but  since  he  failed  to 
distinguish  a  Lucas  from  a  Leonardo,  or  to 
acknowledge  his  error  when  found  out,  his 


A  Vice-Chancellor         49 

opinion   on   artistic  matters   leaves  us   un- 
moved. 

Some  Italian  pictures  have,  owing  to  a 
certain  law,  a  little  difficulty  in  leaving  their 
country.  One  collector  who  had  bought  at 
a  considerable  cost  a  genuine  Old  Master  in 
Rome  got  over  this  difficulty  by  having  a 
sea-scape  lightly  painted  over  it.  On  reach- 
ing the  West  the  collector  sent  it  to  his  pic- 
ture-cleaner to  have  the  sea-scape  removed, 
and  after  some  months  he  wrote  to  ask  how 
this  was  getting  on.  The  picture-cleaner  re- 
plied: "We  have  removed  the  sea-scape  and 
we  have  removed  the  Old  Master  and  what 
do  you  wish  done  with  'The  Coronation  of 
William  IV?" 


Monday,  October  2ist 

This  morning  the  Admiral  in  com- 
mand of  the  shipbuilding  yard  at  Hog  Is- 
land took  us  over  it.  Fifteen  months  ago 


50  The  Voyage  of 

students  from  the  University  were  botaniz- 
ing on  its  swampy  site.  To-day  there  are 
some  forty  ships  in  all  stages  of  construc- 
tion, seventy  miles  of  railway  track  in  the 
yards,  30,000  workmen,  who  with  their  fami- 
lies are  housed  in  hundreds  of  dwellings 
which  have  sprung  from  the  sea-foam  in  the 
course  of  a  few  months.  There  are  numerous 
hotels  and  clubs  for  the  unmarried  hands. 

Here  we  met  a  camouflager,  who  allowed, 
as  I  had  seen  in  New  York,  that  much  more 
blue  is  used  on  their  ships  than  on  ours.  He 
also  told  us  that  the  design  was  by  no  means 
haphazard,  but  carefully  thought  out  and 
drawn  on  paper  before  being  adopted.  Each 
ship  has  a  model  and  unless  the  camouflage 
succeeded  in  deceiving  the  enemy  by  a  certain 
number  of  points  in  the  compass — I  suppose 
the  Censor  won't  let  me  say  how  many — it 
was  rejected  altogether  or  revised. 

Later  in  the  morning  we  motored  to 
Bryn  Mawr  which  was  as  charming  as  ever. 


A  Vice-Chancellor         51 

Here  we  lunched  and  then  went  on  to 
Haverford,  an  old  home  of  mine,  which 
like  the  Brown  University  at  Providence, 
R.I.,  and  doubtless  others,  has  rejected  the 
gilded  unsectarianism  of  Mr.  Carnegie. 

We  dined  at  the  Arts  Club  with  the 
Director  of  the  Drexel  Institution,  who  had 
the  happy  idea  of  asking  each  of  us  to  talk 
about  ourselves.  Never  have  I  heard  better 
speeches ! 

Tuesday,  October  22nd 

We  had  a  quiet  day  at  Princeton,  a 
really  restful  one.  In  the  morning  we  visited 
some  of  the  numerous  departments  turned 
into  war  work,  especially  those  connected 
with  aircraft,  for  Princeton  has  specialized 
in  this  branch.  After  an  informal  lunch  with 
my  host  at  my  old  Princeton  home,  we  had 
two  hours  to  ourselves,  a  great  boon  in  these 
hurried  days.  Then  we  attended  a  Review, 


52  The  Voyage  of 

the  President  taking  the  salute,  and  after- 
wards a  short  formal  meeting  in  Nassau 
Hall  with  the  Faculty.  This  was  a  very  dig- 
nified proceeding.  The  speeches  were  short 
and  to  the  point. 

It  was  a  memorable  occasion.  Fifty  years 
ago,  to  the  day,  President  McCosh,  whose 
name  you  can  still  conjure  with,  took  over  the 
guidance  of  what  was  then  a  much  smaller 
institution.  Five  years  ago  to  the  day  I  had 
the  honour  of  taking  part  in  the  opening  ex- 
ercises of  Dean  West's  magnificent  Gradu- 
ate College,  now  the  home  of  the  Paymasters 
of  the  Fleet.  But  these  aniversaries  are  as 
nothing  compared  to  the  fact  that  over  the 
Hall  in  which  we  met  the  British  flag  was 
floating  where  it  had  not  floated  for  177 
years ! 

Wednesday,  October  23rd 

On  passing  through  New  York  we 
were    entertained    at    a    most    sumptuous 


A  Vice-Chancellor          53 

banquet    by    the    members    of    the    Lotus 

Club.     Here    we   met   many    of    the    out- 

* 

standing  men  of  the  City,  in  all  branches  of 
literature,  learning  and  commerce,  and  here 
we  heard  the  last  of  the  many  Wilson  notes. 
As  so  often  happens,  the  evening  report  was 
an  exaggeration  of  what  the  morrow  was  to 
bring  forth.  Much  eloquence,  for  the 
speeches  with  one  exception  (and  the  speaker 
of  this  sat  next  me)  were  long  and  many, 
dealt  at  length  on  the  term  "unconditional" 
but  that  word  was  lacking  in  the  full  report 
of  the  President's  Note  in  the  newspapers 
next  morning. 

The  third  of  the  classical  injunctions  to 
the  after-dinner  speaker,  "Get  up,  get  on, 
and  get  down,"  is  neglected  in  this  country. 
Never  have  I  heard  so  many  brilliant  per- 
orations passed  by — especially  by  one  of  our 
Mission — and  the  first  always  seemed  to  me 
the  best.  Nevertheless  it  was  a  most  suc- 
cessful gathering  and  we  left  a  little  before 


54  The  Voyage  of 

midnight  much  heartened  by  innumerable 
expressions  of  good-will  and  much  touched 
by  innumerable  acts  of  kindness. 

Thursday,  October  24th 

Our  visit  to  Yale  was  another  restful 
one.  In  the  two  laboratories  I  visited,  the 
pathological  and  the  biological,  I  was  im- 
pressed both  by  the  thoroughness  and  by  the 
originality  of  the  researches  being  carried  on. 
Here,  as  at  other  American  universities,  there 
is  ample  room  and  a  most  cordial  welcome 
awaiting  the  British  graduate  who  wishes  to 
study  on  lines  hitherto  hardly  touched  on  in 
our  Islands. 

Friday,  October  25th 

The  President  of  Yale  had  in  the 
most  kindly  fashion  arranged  a  short  confer- 
ence between  the  Faculty  and  the  members 
of  the  Commission;  this  my  colleagues  tell 


A  Vice-Chancellor         55 

me  was  one  of  the  most  helpful  meetings 
which  had  as  yet  taken  place;  unfortunately 
before  it  was  more  than  half-way  through  I 
more  or  less  collapsed.  The  incessant  strain 
of  meeting  hundreds  of  hospitable  hosts  each 
day,  the  constant  speeches  and  the  eternal 
lack  of  sleep  had  proved  too  much  for  more 
than  one  of  us.  I  retired  to  the  handsome  li- 
brary of  the  comfortable  club  which  put 
us  up,  a  library  where  that  blessed  word 
"SILENCE"  is  not  only  enjoined  but  exer- 
cised, and  fell  asleep  in  an  armchair.  On 
waking  I  decided,  to  my  great  regret,  to  omit 
Amherst,  Smith  and  other  Colleges,  and  go 
straight  to  Boston.  Here  I  took  refuge  with 
an  old  Cambridge  friend  in  the  quietest  of 
hotels  inhabited  by  great  numbers  of  dear 
old  mid- Victorian  ladies  whose  age  justifies 
the  proud  boast  of  the  proprietor  that  no  one 
ever  dies  in  his  hotel.  On  arrival  I  went  to 
bed. 


56  The  Voyage  of 

Saturday,  October  26th 

Slept. 

Sunday,  October  2yth 

Slept  most  of  the  morning  and  in  the 
afternoon  went  out  to  the  hospitable  house 
of  the  President  of  Harvard.  On  the  way 
our  most  kindly  guide  and  his  wife  drove  us 
out  to  Concord  through  autumn-tinted  roads 
and  country  lanes.  We  saw  the  homes  of 
Hawthorne  and  Emerson.  It  was  interesting 
to  learn  that  the  son  of  the  latter,  Dr.  Ed- 
ward Emerson,  was  still  living  in  his  father's 
village,  just  as  it  is  to  know  that  Longfel- 
low's daughter  is  still  living  in  her  father's 
stately  house  in  Cambridge  just  around  the 
corner  from  President  Lowell's  house.  We 
saw  the  virile  statue  by  a  Concord  sculptor 
of  the  young  farmer  who  fired  the  first  shot 
in  the  War  of  Rebellion  standing  at  the  foot 
of  the  bridge  inscribed  with  these  lines : 


A  Vice-Chancellor         57 

By  the  rude  bridge  that  arched  the  flood, 
Their  flag  to  April's  breeze  unfurled, 
Here  once  the  embattled  farmers  stood 
And  fired  the  shot  heard  round  the  world. 

April  iQth,  1775. 


We  also  saw  on  what  was  once  the  battle- 
field of  Concord  a  touching  tribute  to  our 
soldiers  : 

They  came  three  thousand  miles  and  died, 
To  keep  the  past  upon  its  throne. 
Unheard  beyond  the  ocean  tide 
Their  English  Mother  made  her  moan. 

April  igth,  1775. 

On  the  way  home  we  stopped  at  the  old 
cemetery  at  Sleepy  Hollow  where  in  ideal 
setting  Emerson  and  Hawthorne  and  Tho- 
reau  lie.  The  sun  was  setting,  a  light  au- 
tumn mist  veiled  all  sharp  outlines;  it  was 
four-thirty  on  a  Sunday  afternoon,  a  time 
when  one's  vitality  is  at  its  lowest,  a  time 
when  at  home  I  always  read  Thomson's  "City 
of  Dreadful  Night."  I  felt  at  peace  with  the 
world  and  in  complete  harmony  with  tombs. 


58  The  Voyage  of 

Monday,  October  28th 

Early  in  the  morning  we  visited 
Tufts  College,  pleasantly  set  on  a  hill.  At 
ll  A.M.  I  lectured  to  some  700  Harvard 
students  in  khaki  and  naval  kit  on  some  of 
the  inconveniences  they  may  meet  at  the 
front.  Nobody  coughed ! 

The  great  crowds  of  splendid  youths  we 
meet  everywhere  seem  almost  overwhelming, 
full  of  fun,  working  hard  and  deadly  in  ear- 
nest. At  least  half  of  them  everywhere  are 
in  sailor's  uniform  and  are  apparently  in 
training  for  commissions,  though  how  such 
thousands  are  to  find  ships  is  difficult  to 
imagine.  Of  course,  many  of  them  are  spe- 
cializing in  such  subjects  as  sea-planes,  wire- 
less, etc. 

Tuesday,  October  29th 

This  morning  we  visited  Boston  Col- 
lege, a  Jesuit  College,  which  grants  degrees. 


A  Vice-Chancellor         59 

As  usual  the  buildings  are  placed  on  a  hill 
commanding  beautiful  views  of  river,  lake, 
mountain  and  city,  the  outline  of  the  last- 
named  tempered  by  distance.  All  this  we 
saw  from  a  roof-garden.  On  descending  in 
the  elevator  I  noticed  with  envy  that  it  was 
fitted  with  a  mechanism,  which,  if  Mr.  Edi- 
son could  but  fit  it  on  all  politicians,  orators 
and  after-dinner  speakers,  would  save  an  im- 
mense amount  of  time  and  enable  us  to  get 
on  with  the  war.  The  mechanism  enables 
the  lift  to  record:  "This  elevator  automati- 
cally closes  itself  within  30  seconds." 

The  chapel,  and  indeed  all  the  buildings, 
were  stately,  well  proportioned  and  satisfy- 
ing to  the  eye.  The  inside  decorations  were 
exceptionally  beautiful  and  some  of  the  more 
artistic  and  restful  were  the  work  of  one 
of  the  Fathers.  An  elderly  priest  seemed  to 
take  an  especial  and  solicitous  interest  in  me, 
and  after  a  time  he  confided  in  me  that 
though  he  had  met  many  Oxford  men  I  was 


60  The  Voyage  of 

the  first  Cambridge  man  he  had  ever  seen. 
He  watched  over  me  as  if  I  was  an  unique 
specimen  and  before  we  left  gave  me  to  un- 
derstand that  this  singular  experience  had 
greatly  widened  his  outlook  on  life. 

On  the  way  home  I  was  pleased  to  find 
that  the  President  was  using  and  had  used 
for  years  the  "Cambridge  Pocket  Diary."  As 
the  originator,  and  for  some  years  the  author, 
of  that  modest  tome  I  felt  a  certain  degree  of 
pride. 

We  lunched  with  the  President  of  "Tech" 
and  his  wife  in  the  magnificent  new  build- 
ings which  have  been  put  up  on  the  Cam- 
bridge side  of  the  Charles  River  since  I  was 
last  in  Boston. 

During  the  afternoon  we  met  the  Harvard 
Faculty  in  their  Hall  and  had  many  helpful 
talks. 

After  dinner  we  went  into  Boston  to  a 
reception  at  the  new  home  of  the  American 
Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences.  Here  again 


A  Vice-Chancellor         61 

I  met  many  old  friends.  One,  a  world-wide 
authority  on  Brachiopods  and  Japanese  art, 
who  had  been  very  good  to  me  over  thirty 
years  ago  when  first  I  came  to  Boston,  had 
travelled  sixty  miles  to  see  me  again.  The 
crowd,  however,  was  so  great  and  the  noise 
we  made  was  so  loud  we  could  converse  but 
little.  One  felt  in  sympathy  with  the  old 
lady  who  said,  "How  can  one  converse  if 
people  will  talk  2"  However,  I  was  lucky 
enough  to  meet  several  zoologists  and  we  got 
away  into  a  quiet  corner  and  talked  shop. 

Wednesday,  October  30th 

Yesterday  it  was  80  degrees  in  the 
shade  and  at  8  A.M.  this  morning  it  was 
already  70  degrees.  The  heat  is  indeed 
overwhelming.  We  are  assured  it  is  un- 
usual, but  except  in  the  Tropics  the  weather 
seems  to  me  to  be  always  and  everywhere 
unusual. 


62  The  Voyage  of 

The  wife  of  our  host  took  us  to  see 
"The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables"  at  Salem. 
This  is  a  delightful  place  and  is  maintained 
with  the  same  pious  and  thoughtful  care  as 
is  Mount  Vernon.  The  whole  arrangement 
recalled  the  merchants'  houses  at  King's 
Lynn,  for  behind  the  house  is  a  garden  run- 
ning down  to  the  water's  edge  where  the 
schooners  used  to  anchor,  and  in  the  garden 
is  a  counting-house. 

The  headlines  of  the  newspapers  are  as 
large  as  ever  but  not  so  quaintly  phrased. 
However,  I  have  just  come  across  an  old 
copy  of  a  Southern  journal  which  records  the 
capture  of  Nazareth  in  the  following  words : 

"British  capture  Christ's  Home  Town." 

Another  one  which  heralded  an  interview 
with  one  of  our  Mission  was : 

"DISHPAN  loses  lure  for  female  sex  in  Eng- 
land, says  prominent  British  Woman  Educator." 


A  Vice-Chancellor         63 

We  left  in  the  evening  for  Montreal, 
travelling  luxuriously  in  a  private  car  which 
had  been  kindly  placed  at  our  service  by  the 
Dominion  Government. 


Thursday,  October  3ist 

All  Hallowe'en. 

At  Montreal  we  were  received  by  the 
President  and  Faculty  of  McGill  University 
in  their  spacious  Library.  Here  we  were 
shown  their  admirable  system  of  card-cata- 
loguing, and  the  rapidity  with  which  a  book 
asked  for  can  be  placed  in  the  asker's  hands. 
One  feature  that  struck  us  greatly  was  their 
circulating  library.  Hundreds  of  books  are 
sent  to  country  villages  in  batches  of  a  dozen 
or  so,  and  are  sent  back  after  a  certain  fixed 
period.  It  recalled  the  same  sort  of  distribu- 
tion that  exists  in  our  Local  Lectures  organi- 
zations in  England,  but  it  is  carried  out  on 
a  greater  scale.  Canada  does  everything  she 


64  The  Voyage  of 

can  to  help  the  farmers  and  their  women- 
folk in  far  away  districts,  and  the  Post-Office 
carries  for  them,  free  of  charge,  any  weekly 
newspaper  they  care  to  order. 

McGill  University,  though  sadly  depleted 
by  the  absence  of  a  very  large  percentage  of 
its  members  at  the  war,  was  still  keeping  the 
flag  of  learning  flying.  We  lunched  with  the 
President  of  the  University  and  his  wife,  and 
met  many  of  the  leading  Professors.  Noth- 
ing could  have  been  kinder  than  our  recep- 
tion. It  is  thirty-two  years  ago  since  I  first 
visited  this  great  Canadian  University,  and 
the  changes  and  improvements  that  have 
been  effected  in  that  time  are  truly  remark- 
able. 

Later  in  the  day  we  visited  the  Town 
Fine  Art  Museums  and  some  private  collec- 
tions. A  former  pupil  of  mine  is  doing  a 
great  work  in  Montreal  in  getting  together 
and  admirably  setting  out  great  and  varied 
collections  of  artistic  objects.  Like  so  many 


A  Vice-Chancellor         65 

students  of  the  biological  sciences  he  has  a 
real  feeling  for  colour,  form  and  design. 

We  dined  with  the  Governors  of  McGill 
University  at  the  University  Club.  We 
made  speeches  and  enjoyed  short  talks  with 
many  old  friends. 

Friday,  November  ist 

All  Saints'  Day. 

In  the  morning  some  of  us  visited  the 
MacDonald  College  of  Agriculture  near  St. 
Anne's,  a  very  efficient  and  as  usual  most 
beautifully  equipped  institution.  In  the  aft- 
ernoon we  went  to  three  of  the  buildings 
amongst  the  dozen  which,  scattered  about  in 
the  City  and  French  quarter  of  the  City,  con- 
stitute the  Montreal  and  Roman  Catholic 
University  of  Laval.  A  second  half  of  this 
great  institution  is  in  Quebec  and  just  at 
present  there  is  a  movement  on  foot  to  sep- 
arate one  from  the  other.  We  saw  the 


66  The  Voyage  of 

Schools  of  Commerce,  of  Veterinary  Science, 
and  of  Dentistry.  The  students  of  the  last 
two  Schools  have  proved  invaluable  in 
France,  and  have  taken  a  very  full  and  most 
helpful  share  at  the  Front. 

At  Laval  the  lectures  are  in  French  and 
it  is  primarily,  though  not  exclusively,  the 
University  of  the  French  Canadian.  McGill 
students  attend  some  of  the  Laval  Courses, 
especially  Law  Courses. 

In  the  evening  the  Boy  and  I  dined  with 
one  or  two  of  the  big  men  in  Montreal  and 
listened  to  some  very  lively  comments  as  to 
the  men  in  the  Dominions  the  British  Gov- 
ernment "delighted  to  honour."  I  tried  to 
assure  them  that  the  Dominion  did  not  suffer 
alone. 


Saturday,  November  2nd 

We  left  early  for  Ottawa,  arriving  at 
that  "proud  city  of  the  Waters"  soon  after 


A  Vice-Chancellor         67 

noon.  The  Governor-General  gave  us  lunch 
at  the  new  and  magnificent  Chateau  Laurier 
Hotel  and  here  we  met  the  Premier,  upon 
whom  I  had  conferred  the  honorary  degree 
of  LL.D.  less  than  five  months  ago.  Laurier 
and  many  of  the  present  Cabinet  Ministers 
were  there  but  there  were  few  speeches. 

I  spent  some  time  at  the  headquarters  of 
the  Entomological  Branch  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  Agriculture.  With  its  twelve  acces- 
sory laboratories  scattered  throughout  Can- 
ada it  is  doing  great  work  second  to  none  in 
or  out  of  Canada.  We  had  tea  with  the 
Duke  and  Duchess  at  Rideau  Hall,  dinner 
at  the  Golf  Club  where  Bishop,  the  Canadian 
"ace,"  was  also  dining,  a  truly  marvellous 
airman  who  has  brought  down  fifty  Huns. 

Sunday,  November  3rd 

Reached  Toronto  quite  early  in  the 
morning  after  a  somewhat  chequered  night. 


68  The  Voyage  of 

I  spent  most  of  the  day  with  the  mothers 
and  friends  of  some  of  the  Canadian  officers 
who  had  stayed  during  the  last  four  years  at 
my  Lodge. 

We  had  tea  at  the  house  of  one  of  the 
leading  financial  authorities  of  the  country 
who  is  however  more  proud  of  the  beauty 
of  his  Bank's  banknotes  than  of  his  out- 
standing business  ability.  He  thinks  they 
will  live  and  certainly  they  ought  to.  To 
most  people  the  beauty  of  a  banknote  is  in 
direct  proportion  to  the  dominant  cypher 
and  they  seldom  look  beyond  this,  yet  they 
should  dwell  on  the  charm  of  the  portrait 
of  Martha  Washington  on  some  of  the  U.S. 
issues. 


Monday,  November  4th 

This  was  really  a  great  day  for  us. 
We  saw  something  of  the  magnificent  build- 
ings of  the  unversity  with  their  complete 


A  Vice-Chancellor         69 

equipment  in  every  department.  We  had  a 
helpful  talk  with  the  Faculty  and  learned 
much  about  the  largest  and  wealthiest  of  the 
great  Canadian  Universities.  Toronto  is  co- 
educational. They  have  the  most  absolute 
and  the  fullest  equality  of  the  sexes  and  the 
women  have  the  front  seats  in  the  lecture 
rooms. 

As  I  have  written  we  really  had  a  great 
day:  most  of  us  managed  to  get  in  four 
speeches. 

(i)  In  the  morning  we  addressed  the 
Faculty  on  the  objects  and  aims  of  the 
Mission;  here  as  indeed  everywhere  we  were 
welcomed  and  made  to  feel  welcome. 

(ii)  A  little  after  noon  we  lunched  with 
several  hundred  of  the  leading  business 
men  at  the  Empire  Club,  and  here  an  un- 
fortunate thing  happened.  In  my  speech  I 
described  how  one  of  the  less  informed  of  our 
Labour  Members  had  reproached  the  older 
Universities  for  neglecting  to  teach  what  he 


jo  The  Voyage  of 

called  "the  newer  subjects,"  such  as  Textile- 
Fabrics,  Brewing  and  Dyeing.  In  replying 
to  him  I  had  pointed  out  that  these  subjects 
were  by  no  means  new,  that  textile-fabrics 
had  begun  to  come  into  use  in  the  Garden  of 
Eden,  that  the  processes  of  fermentation 
were  understood  by  Noah,  and  that  dyeing 
was  one  of  the  most  ancient  of  arts.  In  re- 
porting this  part  of  my  speech  the  news- 
papers made  me  say  that  "dying  was  one  of 
the  oldest  of  human  industries."  I  was  sorry 
for  this,  as  though  the  undertakers  seemed 
pleased  I  fear  the  local  clergy  thought  me 
flippant. 

(iii)  Immediately  after  lunch  we  were 
received  by  the  Mayor  and  made  speeches 
to  the  Corporation.  The  Mayor  was  kind- 
ness itself,  and  showered  us  with  gifts, 
culminating  in  lovely  silken  Canadian  flags. 

(iv)  We  dined  at  a  charming  club  as  the 
guests  of  the  University.  I  sat  between  the 
Governor  and  the  Premier  of  the  Province, 


A  Vice-Chancellor         71 

and  here  we  were  delighted  by  meeting 
again  the  unveiler  of  the  recently  erected 
statue  to  Lincoln  at  Springfield,  111.  We  all 
made  speeches. 

The  food  conditions  in  Canada  are  to  a 
visitor  from  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic 
overwhelming.  They  are  the  same  in  the 
United  States.  The  people  of  North  Amer- 
ica have  made  great  and,  for  the  most  part, 
voluntary  sacrifices  to  solve  the  food  problem 
in  Europe,  and  they  have  solved  it.  Much 
more  would  they  send  could  they  get  it 
across.  Still  much  remains  behind. 

At  the  numerous  hospitable  dinners  and 
banquets  we  had  eaten  the  fare  was  both 
ample  and  excellent,  but  the  excess  of  a 
City  Dinner  was  mercifully  and  properly  ab- 
sent. At  the  hotels  things  were  on  a  differ- 
ent basis.  At  Toronto  we  were  housed  in  a 
thoroughly  comfortable  house,  not  one  of 
those  gilded  palaces  one  finds  in  New  York, 
but  one  which  provided  everything  we  could 


72  The  Voyage  of 

want,  and  here  is  a  list  of  the  things  we  could 
eat: 

Blue  Point  Oysters,  Malapeque  Oysters  45,1  Cock- 
tail 50;  Cotuit  Oysters  50,  Bread  and  Butter 
10. 

Crabflakes  Cocktail  60,  Shrimps  Cocktail  60,  Lob- 
ster Cocktail  75,  Oyster  Stew  30,  with  cream 
40. 

HORS  D'OZuvRE:  Romanoff  Caviar  on  Ice  1.25, 
Grape  Fruit  30,  Celery  35,  Salted  Almonds 
30,  Chow  Chow  30,  Bengal  Chutney  30,  Dill 
Pickles  20,  French  Sardines  in  oil  50,  Olives 
30,  Stuffed  Celery  50,  Chili  Sauce  10,  Chutney 
15,  Grape  Fruit  Supreme  60,  Anchovies  in 
Oil  60. 

SOUP:  Consomme  Japonais  30,  Creme  of  Chicken 
35,  Potage  Milanais  30,  Hot  or  cold  Con- 
somme, clear  30,  garnished  35,  Chicken  Broth 
clear  30,  with  chicken  and  rice  35,  Celery 
Broth  30,  Clam  Broth  30,  Mock  Turtle  35, 
Puree  of  Split  Pea  30,  Mongole  Soup  30, 
Onion  Soup  au  Gratin  35,  Onion  Soup  in 
cream  33. 

All  strained  soups  in  cups. 

FISH  :  Boiled  Fresh  Codfish,  egg  sauce  70,  Lob- 
ster and  Finnan  Haddie  Newbourg  90,  Boiled 
Jumbo  Whitefish  hoteliere  70,  Fried  Green 
Smelts  with  bacon,  tartare  70,  (15  Minutes), 

1  The  figures  indicate  cents. 


A  Vice-Chancellor          73 

Planked  Whitefish  with  cucumbers  75,  Cold 
Lobster  mayonnaise  80-1.50. 

SPECIALS:  Lamb  Chops  saute  champvallon  85, 
Breaded  milk- fed  Chicken  Maryland  1.25, 
Braised  Premium  Ham  mashed  Sweet  Pota- 
toes 90,  Boiled  Lamb  Steak  Foyot  1.15,  Calf 
head  en  Tortue  80,  Cold  Sliced  Capon  and 
Tongue  Asparagus  Tips  i.oo,  Omelette  Celes- 
tine  65. 

ROASTS  :  Roast  Lamb  Mint  Sauce  85,  Roast  Tur- 
key Cranberry  Sauce  1.10,  Roast  Ribs  of  Beef 
au  Jus  75. 

VEGETABLES:  Cauliflower  Mousseline  35,  Potato 
Marquis  30,  New  Bermuda  Potato  in  cream 
30,  Boiled  15,  Baked  Potato  25,  Mashed  Pota- 
toes 20,  Creamed  Potatoes  30,  Beets  in  butter 
36,  Succotash  30,  Stewed  Tomatoes  35,  French 
fried  25,  California  asparagus  35. 

COLD  CUTS:  Roast  Lamb  80,  Chicken  (Half) 
l.OO,  Sliced  Capon  argentine  90,  Lamb  tongue 
60,  Beef  tongue  70,  Sliced  Turkey  90. 

SALADS:  Shrimp  80,  Tomatoes  35,  Lobster  l.OO, 
Fruit  60,  Chicken  60,  Hearts  of  Lettuce  35, 
Lettuce  and  Tomato  40,  Cucumber  35,  Water- 
cress 30,  Russian  dressing  15,  Mayonnaise 
dressing  15,  Roquefort  dressing  30. 

ICE  CREAM  AND  ICES:  Strawberry  Ice  Cream  30, 
Orange  Water  Ice  25,  Neapolitaine  35,  Choco- 
lat  Parfait  35,  Coffee  Ice  Cream  30,  Vanilla 
30,  Chocolate  30,  Cafe  Parfait  35,  Lemon 
Water  Ice  35. 


74  The  Voyage  of 

FRUITS  AND  PRESERVES:  Honey  Dew  Melon  35, 
Grape  Fruit  30,  Banana  15,  Assorted  Fruits 
50,  Red  Currant  Jelly  35,  Bar-le-Duc  40,  Can- 
ton Ginger  30,  Orange  30. 

CHEESE:  Richelieu  20,  McLaren's  imperial  20, 
Neufchatel  20,  Canadian  20,  Camembert  30, 
Roquefort  40,  Swiss  30,  Ingersoll  cream  20. 

COFFEE  :  Coffee  with  cream,  small  pot  for  one  20, 
large  pot  40,  Demi-Tasse  10,  with  cream  15, 
Ice  Coffee  20,  Cocoa,  Chocolate  25,  Ice  Tea 
with  cream  20,  Horlick's  Malted  Milk  20, 
Milk  per  bottle  10. 

'H-I-M-M-M-I- 

Dishes  not  on  menu  will  be  served  by  request. 
"I-I-I-I-I-M-M-I- 

"All  persons  in  ordering  food  ought  to  consider  the 
needs  of  Great  Britain  and  the  Allies  for 
wheat,  beef,  bacon  and  food,  and  that  the 
Canada  Food  Board  desires  the  public  to  do 
everything  in  their  power  to  make  these  com- 
modities available  for  export  by  eating  as  lit- 
tle as  possible  of  them,  and  my  making  use  of 
substitutes  and  avoiding  waste." 


Tuesday,  November  5th 

We  went  to  bed  this  morning  before 
l  A.M.  and  got  up  at  6.30  to  start  for 
Niagara.  We  had,  as  ever,  perfect  weather 


A  Vice-Chancellor          75 

and  many  picturesque  views  of  streams, 
lakes,  and  woods.  Hitherto  I  have  always 
visited  Niagara  from  the  American  side  and 
this  is,  I  think,  the  better  way.  Coming  first 
to  the  Canadian  side  the  views  are  less  im- 
pressive. 

The  falls  are  much  as  they  were  and  do 
not  seem  to  have  changed  in  the  last  two- 
and-thirty  years.  The  Victoria  Park  on  the 
Canadian  side,  the  park  on  the  American 
side  and  on  Goat  Island  and  the  new  hotels 
have,  however,  vastly  improved  the  amenity 
of  the  "section."  On  the  other  hand,  the 
factories,  power  houses,  etc.,  which  desecrate 
the  cliffs  between  the  Falls  and  the  Rapids, 
grow  in  number  and  in  horror. 

We  left  in  the  late  afternoon  for  Windsor 
and  here  we  had  to  leave  our  Canadian  pri- 
vate car.  Those  of  us,  however,  who  had 
comfortable  beds  could  not  tear  ourselves 
from  the  Canadian  soil  and  remained  in  the 
car.  The  rest  of  us  continued  in  the  train 


76  The  Voyage  of 

which  embarked  on  a  ferry,  the  ferry 
crossed  the  Detroit  River  and  at  2  A.M.  we 
were  at  rest  in  one  of  the  most  comfortable 
of  the  many  comfortable  hotels  we  lodged 
at  during  our  tour. 


Wednesday,  November  6th 

Some  of  our  party  got  up  early  and 
visited  Mr.  Ford's  works.  I  did  not.  After 
all,  they  did  not  see  the  works,  but  heard 
quite  a  lot  about  them  from  one  of  the  chief 
managers.  The  works  are  on  a  large  scale 
and  the  workmen  receive  a  minimum  of  £1 
a  day.  In  addition  to  this  their  morals  are 
carefully  scrutinized.  A  woman  cannot  give 
her  husband  a  black  eye  without  Mr.  Ford 
being  'phoned  up,  and  he  at  once  adjusts  the 
domestic  difference.  The  number  of  work- 
men is  about  50,000  and  the  daily  pay-bill 
amounts  to  at  least  £50,000. 

Mr.  Ford  is  now  out  to  win  the  war  and 


A  Vice-Chancellor          77 

has  quite  voluntarily  and  unostentatiously 
cut  down  his  own  income  to  what  must  be 
an  almost  starvation  rate  for  a  multi-mil- 
lionaire ;  I  forget  to  how  many  hundred  thou- 
sand pounds  he  reduced  his  annual  income. 

Mid-day  we  left  for  Ann  Arbor  and  here 
we  spent  a  delightful  four-and-twenty  hours. 
One  of  the  most  inspiring  sights  we  had  seen 
was  the  march  past  of  some  two  or  three 
thousand  students  in  khaki  and  in  sailors'  kit. 
They  were  simply  splendid  as  they  moved  to 
the  tune  of  the  Michigan  march  familiar  to 
our  ears  through  Sousa's  Band.  Ann  Arbor 
is  the  oldest  and  most  renowned  of  the 
State  Universities  in  the  Middle  West,  and 
it  was  with  peculiar  pleasure  and  pride  that 
we  received  at  the  hands  of  the  genial  and 
friendly  President  the  distinction  of  Honor- 
ary Degrees.  The  ceremony  was  simple  and 
very  dignified.  We  were  each  presented  in 
short,  but  graceful,  speeches  by  the  Profes- 


78  The  Voyage  of 

sor  of  Philosophy  spoken  in  English.    Latin 
would  have  saved  many  of  our  blushes. 

I  was  interested  to  learn  that  the  Univer- 
sity employs  five  "whole-time"  doctors  to 
look  after  the  health  of  the  students.  For 
the  payment  of  $5  a  year  each  student  re- 
ceives free  medical  attendance,  free  medicine 
and  free  treatment  at  one  of  the  University 
hospitals.  Ann  Arbor  has  a  very  large  medi- 
cal school. 


Thursday,  November  yth 

We  are  living  altogether  too  fast  and 
I  doubt  whether  we  can  stand  the  strain,  so 
many  things  happen  and  all  at  once.  The 
barber  told  me  this  morning  that  Ohio  had 
gone  wet  or  dry,  I  forget  which,  but  as  we 
go  all  round,  but  not  into,  Ohio  it  does  not 
much  matter.  These  constant  and  sudden 
changes  in  the  humidity  of  large  tracts  of 
land  must  of  course  affect  the  conditions  of 


A  Vice-Chancellor         79 

a  large  section  of  the  population,  but  in  what 
way  is  a  matter  of  dispute.  Russia  went  dry 
about  three  years  ago,  but  the  Muscovite  mil- 
lennium still  tarries. 

Then  they  say  Mr.  Ford  is  not  elected 
Senator;  yet  he  had  a  lot  in  his  favour — 
unlimited  and  moral  workmen,  innumerable 
motor-cars,  and  he  is,  they  tell  me,  a  republi- 
can on  a  democratic  ticket;  "carrying  water 
on  both  shoulders,"  as  they  say  here.  In  our 
country  such  arguments  would  have  proved 
irresistible. 

A  son  has  been  born  to  the  chauffeur  of 
our  host.  He  is  radiant  and  quite  unrespon- 
sive to  talks  of  armistice.  To  him,  if  he 
clearly  understands  what  it  is,  an  armistice 
seems  a  long  way  off  and  very  intangible, 
whilst  he  can  see  and  hear,  and  if  his  wife 
will  let  him,  touch  his  little  babe. 

Then  as  a  climax,  "Peace"  was  declared 
at  about  1.30  P.M.  Ann  Arbor  is  a  small 
place  and  took  the  news  calmly.  The  corner 


8o  The  Voyage  of 

boy,  almost  an  extinct  mammal,  continued  to 
decorate  his  corner  undismayed.  But  it  was 
otherwise  on  the  train.  Passengers  from 
Detroit  told  us  that  all  work  had  ceased,  all 
the  factories  had  emptied,  all  the  whistles 
and  hooters  were  whistling  and  hooting,  and 
'all  the  flags  were  flying.  The  news  seemed 
so  overwhelming  that  it  interfered  with  rea- 
son. Of  course,  Peace  couldn't  and  didn't 
come  like  this,  but  the  only  one  on  the  train 
who  showed  a  reasonable  appreciation  of 
events  was  the  elderly  conductor  who  said  to 
me  in  an  inimitable  drawl :  "Yes,  sir,  we're 
celebrating  the  news  of  Peace  on  every  sec- 
tion of  this  line,  but  it  ain't  confirmed" 

At  Kalamazoo  we  were  joined  by  three 
beautifully  dressed  ladies.  On  hearing  the 
news  they  had  hurried  into  their  most 
splendid  creations  and  their  most  ravishing 
toques  and  were  on  their  way  to  join  in  the 
peace  celebration  in  Chicago,  which  they 
opined  would  be  on  a  great  scale.  When 


A  Vice-Chancellor          81 

some  kindly  Professors  boarded  the  train  and 
told  us  that  the  news  was,  to  say  the  least, 
premature,  we  gently  broke  it  to  the  ladies. 
They  showed  no  disappointment  and  little 
surprise,  indeed  they  laughed  merrily.  So 
great  is  the  moral  effect  of  really  beautiful 
clothes  and  so  sustaining  is  the  consciousness 
of  being  the  best  dressed  women  in  the 
crowd !  It  affords  a  striking  example  of  the 
triumph  of  matter  over  mind. 

The  kindness  of  our  hosts — and  to  us  the 
whole  nation  seem  to  be  our  hosts — is  inex- 

r 

haustible.  Everywhere  we  go  we  are  expect- 
ed and  helped  through.  The  very  custom 
houses  open  their  doors  for  us  and  the  Reve- 
nue officers  won't  even  glance  at  our  luggage. 
The  railway  authorities  had  sent  to  our  train 
to  help  us  on  our  way  to  Chicago  a  very  able 
and  really  interesting  young  official  who  was 
courtesy  itself.  He  told  us  that  but  a  few 
years  ago  he  had  been  in  an  orchestra  where 
he  played  the  drum.  I  am  unfortunately 


82  The  Voyage  of 

immune  to  music,  but  it  sticks  in  my  mind 
that  Dan  Godfrey  once  told  me  that  he  who 
plays  the  drum  must  have  a  great  sense  for, 
and  appreciation  of,  "time."  This  quality 
may  account  for  the  rapid  career  of  our 
friend  in  the  Railway  World.  I  hope  he 
will  in  time  rise  to  be  President  of  the  Line. 
I  am  sure  he  would  be  a  good  one. 

We  arrived  in  Chicago  in  a  deluge  of 
rain  and  saw  what  remained  of  the  celebra- 
tion. We  were  soon  housed  in  the  luxurious 
and  comfortable  University  Club  and  "so 
to  bed." 


Friday,  November  8th 

We  spent  to-day  at  the  University  of 
Chicago.  This  is  one  of  the  youngest,  one 
of  the  most  original  of  the  United  States 
Universities.  Youth  accounts  for  much  of 
this  originality,  President  Harper — he  was 
President  of  Chicago  when  first  I  visited  it 


A  Vice-Chancellor         83 

— accounted  for  more.  Youth  is  also  respon- 
sible for  the  fact  that  though  at  other  centres 
there  may  be  single  edifices  more  stately  and 
more  beautiful  than  any  at  Chicago,  it  is,  as 
regards  its  buildings,  one  of  the  most  com- 
plete and  most  uniform  of  all  American  Uni- 
versities. Like  the  Unities  of  the  Drama,  as 
expounded  by  Mr.  Curdle  to  Nicholas  Nick- 
leby,  it  combines  "a  completeness — a  kind 
of  universal  dovetailedness  with  regard  to 
place  and  time — a  sort  of  general  oneness,  if 
I  may  be  allowed  to  use  so  strong  an  expres- 
sion." 

The  President  of  the  University  is  away 
in  Persia  and  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  en 
route  he  went  chasing  all  the  way  from  Lon- 
don up  the  Scapa  Flow  to  ask  the  Admiral  of 
the  Grand  Fleet  and  his  wife,  nee  Marshall 
Field's  daughter,  to  sign  a  legal  document 
empowering  the  University  to  purchase  a 
small  alley- way  which  somehow  stood  in  the 
way  of  the  extension  of  the  already  ample 


84  The  Voyage  of 

University  campus.  In  his  absence  we  were 
hospitably  entertained  by  his  wife  and  the 
acting  President. 

We  had  a  helpful  conference  during  the 
afternoon  with  the  Faculty  in  the  Ida  Noyes 
Building,  the  home  of  the  lady  students,  but 
it  is  not  fair  to  expect  a  lot  of  newcomers  to 
confer  in  a  room  decorated,  as  this  was,  with 
the  most  charming  of  modern  frescoes.  We 
couldn't  help  looking  at  all  the  graceful  and 
gorgeous  young  creatures  depicted  in  them 
and  we  were,  I  fear,  more  interested  in  them 
than  in  the  exchange  of  Professors  and  Stu- 
dents. Why  can't  we  exchange  frescoes'? 
Later  we  dined  in  the  Hall  of  the  same  in- 
stitution and  all  made  speeches. 

Saturday,  November  9th 

To-day  we  journeyed  through  the 
corn-fields  and  over  the  coal-fields  to 
Champagne-Urbana  to  visit  the  great  Illi- 


A  Vice-Chancellor          85 

nois  State  University — one  of  the  biggest 
and  most  rapidly  growing  of  these  institu- 
tions under  State  control.  Stretching  through 
some  forty-six  of  the  forty-eight  States, 
with  an  aggregate  of  175,000  students,  these 
State-aided  Institutions  are  a  power  in  the 
land.  Their  trustees  are  nominated  by  the 
Governor  or  the  Mayor  or  are  elected  at 
the  same  time  and  by  the  same  electoral 
body  as  the  State  legislature,  and  so  little  do 
they  fear  the  interference  of  the  politician 
that  the  President  of  one  of  the  best-known 
of  them  said  to  us  "they  would  feel  kind 
of  lonesome  without  it."  After  visiting  the 
well-known  horticultural  branch  of  the  Uni- 
versity we  were  welcomed  by  addresses  and 
other  recitations,  and  tried  to  make  suitable 
replies  to  some  two  or  three  thousand  stu- 
dents and  professors  from  a  background  of 
four  fair  ladies  representing  respectively  the 
United  States,  Illinois,  Great  Britain  and 


86  The  Voyage  of 

Canada.     In    the    evening   we    returned    to 
Chicago. 

Whilst  we  were  away  the  Boy  had  been 
to  a  football  match  between  Michigan  and 
Chicago — Michigan  won — and  came  back 
full  of  College  yells. 


Sunday,  November  loth 

We  went  a  long  drive  along  the 
North  Shore  and  then  visited  the  Academy 
of  Fine  Art.  Amongst  many  priceless  pos- 
sessions is  a  whole  room  filled  with  Monets ! 


Monday,  November  nth 

"Peace  hath  murdered  Sleep." 
Hardly  had  we  dozed  off  than  we  were 
awakened  at  2  A.M.  by  a  most  infernal  din. 
"Peace,"  as  they  will  call  an  armistice, 
seemed  to  have  been  declared  again.  We 
were  naturally  sceptical,  but  being  sceptical 


A  Vice-Chancellor         87 

in  bed  whilst  a  million  and  a  half  were  cred- 
ulous outside  doesn't  bring  sleep. 

The  noise  was  overwhelming.  All  that 
night  and  all  next  day  and  most  of  the  next 
night  the  hooters  hooted,  the  whistles  whis- 
tled, the  syrens  syrened,  brass  utensils 
brayed,  tin-trumpets  trumpeted,  the  people 
yelled,  the  motors  rushed  about  with  tin-can 
accompaniments,  boys  banged  bones,  grown- 
up men  frantically  beat  iron  telegraph  posts 
with  crow-bars ;  every  conceivable  instrument 
was  beaten,  brayed  or  blown,  but  the  hooters 
were  the  worst.  They  seemed  to  have  an  un- 
canny quality  about  them  and  as  they 
moaned  and  boomed  and  shrieked  they 
seemed  to  come  into  your  room  and  you  felt 
as  though  you  could  touch  them.  The  pa- 
rading people  were  excited,  but  good-natured 
and  friendly.  An  elderly  divine  who  took 
part  in  these  nocturnal  celebrations  told  us 
next  morning  that  quite  respectable  ladies 
had  put  feathers  down  his  neck;  he  added 


88  The  Voyage  of 

that  after  a  time  "one  got  quite  used  to  it.'* 
In  the  morning  this  noise  increased. 
Thousands  of  lorries  and  motors  pervaded 
the  city  packed  with  children  and  women, 
the  latter  by  now  beginning  to  look  like  Sis- 
ters of  Mercy  after  a  bump-supper.  A  pecu- 
liar manifestation  of  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
people  was  the  casting  forth  from  every  win- 
dow innumerable  scraps  of  paper — I  believe 
the  Telephone  Directories  suffered  most — 
which  blackened  the  skies  and  whitened  the 
ground.  It  cost  the  City  of  New  York 
$85,000  to  clear  up  their  paper  litter  after 
their  dress-rehearsal  last  Thursday ! 

To-day  we  visited  the  North  Western 
University.  Like  many  others,  it  has  certain 
of  its  Departments  in  the  City,  such  as  the 
Medical,  the  Commercial,  the  Dental,  and 
the  Legal.  We  had  time  only  to  visit  the 
last  two  and  found  them  well  equipped  and 
well  staffed.  There  is  even  in  the  last- 
named  a  replica  of  a  Law  Court,  and  here 


A  Vice-Chancellor          89 

the  students  try  cases.  I  don't  know  whether 
I  am  more  afraid  of  dentists  or  of  lawyers; 
I  suppose  one  is  a  physical  and  the  other  a 
moral  fear,  but  I  was  glad  to  find  myself  on 
the  way  to  Evanston,  some  twelve  miles 
north  of  Chicago,  where  the  main  buildings 
of  the  North  Western  State  University  are 
situate.  Our  progress  was  impeded  by  pa- 
rades; all  the  schools,  all  the  organized  So- 
cieties paraded  and  all  made  as  much  noise 
as  they  could.  Finally,  however,  we  arrived 
at  the  Campus,  beautifully  placed  on  the 
shores  of  the  lake.  We  found  here  the  same 
freshness  of  view,  and  belief  in  the  future, 
the  same  numerous  staff  and  adequate  equip- 
ment that  we  had  found  elsewhere ;  but  there 
seems  always  some  novel  and  original  feature 
in  each  new  institution  we  visit,  and  at  the 
North  Western  University  we  found  a  large 
building  entirely  devoted  to  Oratory.  Any 
future  Mission  to  this  country,  before  em- 
barking on  its  career  of  speeches,  might  well 


9O  The  Voyage  of 

take  a  short  course  of  Oratory  at  Evanston. 
After  a  comforting  lunch  at  the  charming 
University  Club,  which  was  somewhat  pro- 
longed by  all  of  us  making  speeches,  we  re- 
turned to  Chicago. 

We  dined  this  evening  with  the  Associa- 
tion of  the  Presidents  of  State  Universities. 
I  was  so  tired  that,  like  the  late  Lord  Hart- 
ington,  I  nearly  fell  asleep  during  my  own 
speech  and  I  could  not  help  dozing  off  again 
and  again  during  those  of  my  colleagues. 
Each  time  I  lost  consciousness  I  had  a  strange 
nightmare  and  it  recurred  again  and  again. 
I  dreamed  that  I  had  heard  it  all  before. 

Tuesday,  November  I2th 

It  is  difficult  to  recount  the  proceed- 
ings of  last  night,  so  I  take  refuge  in  an  ex- 
cerpt from  the  sober  columns  of  the  Tribune: 

Delirium  and  license  disputed  the  rule  of 
Chicago's  streets  last  night.  The  mad  revel  of 
the  day  approached  an  orgy  last  night. 


A  Vice-Chancellor         91 

The  wild  celebration  that  had  raged  since  the 
darkness  of  the  early  morning  hours  of  Monday 
ended  in  hysteria  in  the  early  morning  hours  of 
Tuesday.  Before  midnight  good  natured  rowdy- 
ism had  become  general.1 

The  members  of  the  University  Club 
where  we  were  lodged,  whose  hospitality  is 
boundless,  gave  us  a  sumptuous  lunch  in  their 
great  dining-room  which  is  a  replica  of  Cros- 
by Hall  seen  under  a  magnifying  lens.  The 
speeches  were  few,  but  good. 

In  the  afternoon  we  attended  a  meeting 
of  the  Presidents  of  State  Universities  and 
amongst  other  good  things  heard  a  masterly 
and  witty  address  from  the  President  of 
Berkeley  University. 


Wednesday,  November  I3th 

We  left  before  eight  in  the  morning 
for  Madison  which  is  the  capital  of  Wiscon- 
sin and  the  seat  of  one  of  the  best-known  and 

1  Chicago  Daily  Tribune,  12.  xi.  18, 


92  The  Voyage  of 

most  celebrated  of  the  State  Universities  of 
the  Middle  West.  The  University  is  set  on  a 
hill  and  a  mile  to  the  north  on  another  hill 
the  world-famed  Capitol  is  set.  The  latter  is 
built  of  a  white  granite,  resembling  marble. 
"The  white  Vermont  (?)  marble  used  at 
Washington  and  elsewhere  is  a  granite  of 
medium  grain;  the  constitutents  of  which  are 
normal  in  so  far  that  they  are  quartz,  mica 
and  feldspar.  Generally,  one  or  more  of 
these  constituents  (most  often  the  mica)  are 
coloured — in  this  case  all  are  colourless:  the 
mica  being  quite  colourless — probably  mus- 
covite."  The  building  is  cruciform  and 
crowned  by  a  dome  as  noble  as  that  of  St. 
Paul's  would  be  if  the  latter  were  cleaned ;  it 
is  also  a  trifle  higher. 

Many  of  the  professors  hold  executive 
positions  under  the  Government  and  this 
happy  combination  of  knowledge  with  state- 
craft seems  to  promote  the  wel£are  both  of 
the  commonwealth  and  of  the  University. 


A  Vice-Chancellor         93 

The  weather  was  perfect,  the  sun  blazing 
hot  and  the  air  as  crisp  as  Switzerland's.  We 
went  an  enchanting  drive  along  the  shores  of 
the  two  lakes,  Mendota  and  Monona,  which 
flank  the  two  hills;  their  waters  are  as  blue 
as  those  of  the  Grotto  at  Capri.  We  then 
attended  a  conference,  important  and  heart- 
ening, but  it  hindered  me  from  seeing  all  but 
the  tail  of  a  most  brilliant  sunset.  The  Boy 
saw  it  all  and  I  was  jealous. 

We  had  a  banquet  with  speeches  in  the 
evening  in  the  spacious  dining-room  of  the 
Madison  Club  where  we  are  being  housed. 
It  is  a  delightful  home  and  never  have  any 
of  us  revelled  so  much  in  perfect  quiet  and 
perfect  views. 

Thursday,  November  I4th 

The  Boy  and  I  visited  a  few  of  the 
many  Departments  of  the  University,  the 
Zoological,  Botanical  and  Geological  Labora- 


94  The  Voyage  of 

tories,  and  those  of  the  Institutes  of  Plant 
Physiology  and  Plant  Pathology.  At  Madi- 
son I  saw  the  results  of  certain  experiments 
which  seemed  to  prove  the  inheritance  of 
acquired  characters,  so  often  doubted.  The 
experiments  are  not  completed  and,  of 
course,  there  may  be  some  flaw  in  the  de- 
ductions, but  to  me  they  seemed  conclusive, 
at  any  rate  for  the  four  generations  which 
up  till  now  form  the  basis  of  the  experiment. 
After  a  delightful  lunch  at  the  Club  we  vis- 
ited some  of  the  many  Departments  of  the 
College  of  Agriculture.  After  dining  with 
the  President  of  the  University,  we  left  for 
Minneapolis. 

They  do  not  pay  in  this  country — or  in 
any  other — their  Professors  or  their  Univer- 
sity Presidents  enough.  Perhaps  it  is  be- 
cause there  are  so  many  of  them.  At  Uni- 
versities not  perceptibly  larger  than  Cam- 
bridge the  teaching  staff  is  bigger  than  our 
whole  Electoral  Roll.  The  stipends  of  the 


A  Vice-Chancellor         95 

teachers  are  as  low  as,  in  some  cases  even 
lower  than,  in  Great  Britain,  and  yet  in  nor- 
mal times  the  expense  of  living  is  higher. 
Well  it  is  the  old,  old  story :  "The  cheapest 
thing  going  to-day,"  says  the  Satirist,  "is 
education."  "I  -pay  my  cook,"  said  Crates, 
"four  pounds  a  year;  but  a  philosopher  can 
be  hired  for  about  sixpence  and  a  tutor  for 
three  half-pence."  "So  to-day,"  writes  Eras- 
mus, "a  man  stands  aghast  at  the  thought  of 
paying  for  his  boy's  education  a  sum  which 
would  buy  a  foal  or  hire  a  farm-servant." 
"Frugality !  it  is  another  name  for  madness !" 

Friday,  November  I5th 

At  10.30  A.M.  we  were  received  at 

the  Minnesota  State  University,  Minneapo- 

« 
lis,  at  a  Convocation  held  in  the  Armoury, 

no  other  building  being  large  enough  to  seat 
the  thousands  who  had  come  to  welcome  us. 
There  were  addresses,  and  three  of  us  made 


96  The  Voyage  of 

speeches  which  were  listened  to  with  the  ut- 
most patience  and  sympathy,  but  the  "note" 
of  the  ceremony  was  the  music  supplied  by 
the  Minneapolis  Symphony  Orchestra.  This 
was  really  magnificent. 

The  Boy  and  I  stayed  with  the  President 
of  the  University  and  his  family,  who,  like 
all  our  hosts,  were  most  kind  in  seeing  that 
we  had  some  sorely  needed  rest.  In  the  late 
afternoon  we  had  a  very  "nourishing"  dis- 
cussion with  the  Faculty  and  the  executive 
officers  and  made  a  few  short  speeches  after 
dining  with  them  in  the  Ladies'  Building. 

Saturday,  November  i6th 

I  visited  the  Zoological  Department 
and  found  amongst  its  many  admirable 
features  an  aquarium  half  as  large  as  that  of 
the  Marine  Biological  Association  at  Plym- 
outh, a  "beavery"  where  young  beavers 


A  Vice-Chancellor         97 

were  building  dams,  and  a  Cinematograph 
Theatre  fully  equipped.  The  teachers  make 
their  own  "movie"  films.  After  a  most  pleas- 
ant luncheon  with  many  of  the  Professors, 
the  Boy  went  to  a  Wisconsin  v.  Minnesota 
football  match.  I  did  not,  my  attitude  to- 
wards athletics  being  that  of  the  Rhodes 
scholar  whose  certificate  from  his  home  Uni- 
versity testified  that  "whilst  he  excelled  in 
none  he  was  sympathetic  towards  all." 

In  the  evening  a  reception  took  place  in 
our  honour  at  the  University  President's 
House.  We  were  introduced  to,  and  shook 
hands  with,  some  twelve  hundred  guests. 
This  took  some  hours  and  the  net  result  was 
that  whilst  our  reason  reeled,  we  seemed  to 
have  given  pleasure  to  a  great  crowd  of  kind- 
ly folk;  at  any  rate  they  were  polite  enough 
to  say  so. 


98  The  Voyage  of 

Sunday,  November  ijth 

In  the  morning  I  visited  a  famous 
private  Art  Collection  with  some  wonderful 
Chinese  curios  and  some  fine  pictures  rather 
weakened  by  a  number  of  quite  mediocre 
paintings. 

This  city,  though  slightly  south  of  Ottawa 
and  Montreal  and  very  slightly  east  of  Des 
Moines, — it  is  on  the  45°  parallel, — is  the 
most  northerly  and,  until  we  reach  Houston, 
Texas,  the  most  westerly  point  of  our  jour- 
ney. We  now  turn  south  and  "nightly  pitch 
our  moving  tent  a  day's  march  nearer  home." 

This  afternoon  I  came  across  a  couple  of 
letters  written  by  two  Rulers  on  the  same 
subject,  but  in  different  tones: 

A  New  York  Times  correspondent  sends  from 
Paris  the  text  of  a  letter  written  by  the  Kaiser  to 
a  German  woman  who  has  lost  nine  sons  in  the 
war.  It  is  interesting,  because  of  its  contrast  to  the 
letter  of  President  Lincoln  to  Mrs.  Bixby  during 
the  American  Civil  War.  The  two  letters  follow: 


A  Vice-Chancellor 


99 


THE  KAISER'S  LETTER 

Mis  Majesty  the  Kaiser 
hears  that  you  have  sacri- 
ficed nine  sons  in  defence 
of  the  Fatherland  in  the 
present  war.  His  Majesty 
is  immensely  gratified  at 
the  fact,  and  in  recognition 
is  pleased  to  send  you  his 
photograph,  with  frame 
and  autograph  signature. 


LINCOLN'S  LETTER 

Dear  Madam:  I  have 
been  shown  in  the  files  of 
the  War  Department  a 
statement  of  the  Adjutant 
General  of  Massachusetts 
that  you  are  the  mother  of 
five  sons  who  have  died 
gloriously  on  the  field  of 
battle.  I  feel  how  weak 
and  fruitless  must  be  any 
words  of  mine  which  should 
attempt  to  beguile  you  from 
the  grief  of  a  loss  so  over- 
whelming. But  I  cannot 
refrain  from  tendering  to 
you  the  consolation  that 
may  be  found  in  the  thanks 
of  the  Republic  they  died 
to  save.  I  pray  that  our 
Heavenly  Father  may  as- 
suage the  anguish  of  your 
bereavement  and  leave  you 
only  the  cherished  memory 
of  the  loved  and  lost,  and 
the  solemn  pride  that  must 
be  yours  to  have  laid  so 
costly  a  sacrifice  upon  the 
altar  of  freedom. 


In  the  evening  we  boarded  the  train  for 
Des  Moines,  Iowa.  The  first  two  or  three 
hours  were  somewhat  disturbed  by  the  train 
developing  a  sort  of  rhythmic,  mechanical 
hiccough  on  a  large  scale,  but  in  time  it  found 
relief  and  we  sleep. 


ioo  The  Voyage  of 

Monday,  November  i8th 

We  were  rather  apprehensive  about 
visiting  Iowa,  as  some  lowans  we  had 
met  in  Minneapolis  were  so  devoted  to  lib- 
erty that  they  seemed  anxious  to  add  to  their 
own  stock  by  taking  it  away  from  everyone 
else.  However,  Iowa  turned  out  to  be  all 
right. 

The  object  of  our  going  to  Des  Moines 
was  to  visit  the  State  College  of  Agriculture 
and  Mechanic  Arts  at  Ames,  some  thirty- 
five  miles  north  of  the  Capital  City.  Here 
we  split  up  into  parties  and  I  found  it  im- 
possible to  visit  more  than  the  Veterinary 
School  and  the  Entomological  Department. 
In  the  latter  I  went  through  part  of  a  well- 
known  Collection  of  Mites  and  here  I  met 
with  the  first  instance  I  had  ever  come 
across  of  a  pathogenic  organism  conveyed  to 
a  plant  (the  beetroot)  by  the  bite  of  an  in- 
sect (a  Leaf-hopper,  Eutettix  tenella  Baker). 


A  Vice-Chancellor        101 

This  "is  the  first  plant  disease  definitely  de- 
termined to  be  entirely  dependent  upon  a 
specific  insect  for  transmission."  Like  the 
Yellow-fever  pathogenic  organism,  and  ap- 
parently that  which  causes  the  modern  influ- 
enza and  many  other  of  our  troubles,  that  of 
the  "Curly-leaf-disease"  of  Beets  is  ultra- 
microscopic.  The  insect  only  conveys  the 
disease  if  it  has  fed  upon  a  diseased  beet,  but 
a  single  bite  of  an  infected  leaf-hopper  will 
infect  the  whole  plant,  and  the  disease  only 
occurs  in  the  beet  when  bitten  by  this  one 
species  of  insect,  and  it  takes  two  weeks  after 
the  puncture  to  develop.  Further,  the  insect 
is  not  capable  of  conveying  the  disease  at 
once,  it  must  have  an  incubation  period  with- 
in the  body  of  the  insect  of  at  least  twenty- 
four  hours,  often  forty-eight.  Thus  this  dis- 
ease runs  a  course  very  similar  to  that  of 
insect-borne  protozoal  diseases  in  animals. 
A  somewhat  similar  history  is  now  being 
worked  out  in  a  potato  disease.  These  re- 


102  The  Voyage  of 

searches  at  Ames  Agricultural  College,  Iowa, 
open  up  an  entirely  new  field  in  plant  pa- 
thology and  will  in  all  probability  prove  of 
the  greatest  economic  value  to  the  agricul- 
turist. 

The  members  of  the  Des  Moines  Club  put 
us  up  during  our  stay  in  the  Capital  City  and 
in  the  evening  gave  us  one  of  the  best  din- 
ners we  had  received  in  this  land  of  dinners. 
We  left  them  feeling  as  the  tablets  say  in 
our  re-decorated  churches,  "enlarged,  re- 
stored and  beautified,"  and  making  our  way 
to  the  train,  left  for  St.  Louis. 

Tuesday,  November  I9th 

The  Chancellor  and  the  authorities  of 
the  University,  dedicated  to  the  memory  of 
that  great  Englishman,  George  Washington, 
at  St.  Louis,  were  most  considerate  and, 
though  placing  themselves  wholly  at  our  dis- 
posal, left  much  of  the  time  to  ourselves. 


A  Vice-Chancellor        103 

Washington  University  is  finely  situate  on 
rising  ground  with  spacious  views,  some  five 
miles  from  the  city.  It  is  approached  through 
a  fine  park,  the  site  of  the  World's  Fair  in 
1904.  The  entrance  is  both  beautiful  and 
imposing,  a  broad  series  of  low  steps  leading 
up  to  the  central  gateway.  All  the  buildings 
were  planned  by  one  architect,  all  are  built  of 
the  same  red  granite — a  local  stone — and  in 
the  same  style,  so  that  here,  even  as  much  as 
at  Chicago,  the  Campus  has  a  unified  charm 
rare  in  Western  Universities.  The  Faculty 
gave  us  a  sumptuous  dinner,  and  although  we 
said  we  would  not  make  speeches,  but  would 
only  just  say  "a  word  or  two,"  at  the  end  the 
Chancellor  said  he  trembled  to  think  what 
would  have  happened  if  we  had  made 
speeches. 

Wednesday,  November  20th 

We  spent  the  morning  at  the  Medical 
School   and   Hospital.    These   two  institu- 


104  The  Voyage  of 

tions  are  practically  one,  and  only  some  four 
years  old.  Everything  is  of  the  best  and 
only  to  be  equalled  by  such  modern  temples 
of  healing  as  that  of  the  University  of  Cin- 
cinnati, where,  curiously  enough,  the  Mayor 
of  the  town  appoints  the  members  of  the 
Board  of  Regents.  Such  a  complete  hospital 
with  a  medical  school  at  its  disposal,  or  such 
a  complete  medical  school  with  a  hospital  at 
its  disposal — one  does  not  quite  know  which 
way  to  put  it — is  unknown  with  us.  Every 
patient  can  be  analysed,  measured,  rayed, 
tested,  in  fact  inspected  with  all  the  latest 
appliances  of  science,  and  the  medical  stu- 
dent is  trained  in  all  these  processes;  but 
when  he  becomes  the  practising  doctor  in 
some  small  town  or  remote  village,  what  can 
he  do  in  this  way  even  though  (and  this  is 
never  the  case)  his  patient  could  afford  such 
refined  treatment*?  Well,  he  must  just  do 
the  best  he  can  and  must  not  envy  the  more 
fortunate  folk  at  St.  Louis. 


A  Vice-Chancellor        105 

We  are  beginning  to  come  across  the  prob- 
lem of  the  coloured  people.  At  Chicago 
black  and  white  lie  in  the  same  wards,  but 
at  St.  Louis  these  patients  do  not  mingle  be- 
yond the  out-patient  department,  and  far- 
ther south  they  do  not  mingle  at  all. 

The  black  troops  have  fought  gallantly. 
The  Germans  have  complained  about  our 
fighting  with  coloured  troops,  but  they  have 
done  far  worse,  they  have  been  fighting 
with  German  troops.  The  other  day  a  darkie 
soldier  tried  to  break  out  of  a  camp  in  the 
South  to  see  his  folk,  and  after  a  lengthy 
dispute  with  the  sentry,  who  told  him  he 
would  be  shot  if  he  persisted,  he  replied, 
"Boss,  t'ain'  no  sort  o'  use  you  stan'in'  dere, 
'cause  I  gwine  out.  I  got  a  maw  in  Hebben 
an'  I  got  a  pa  in  Hell  an'  a  sister  in  Mem- 
phis, an'  I  gwine  see  one  of  'em  dis  night." 

Later  in  the  day  we  visited  the  Missouri 
Botanical  Garden,  presented  and  endowed 
by  an  Englishman,  Mr.  Henry  Shaw,  who 


106  The  Voyage  of 

had  made  a  large  fortune  in  hardware.  The 
gardens  cover  an  area  of  125  acres,  and 
there  are  grown  some  11,000  species  of 
plants.  The  hot-houses  are  very  fine,  espe- 
cially those  devoted  to  heaths,  orchids, 
cycads,  palms  and  pineapples  and  the  flora  of 
the  desert.  One  house  was  full  of  a  Chrys- 
anthemum show,  the  most  interesting  plant 
in  which  was  the  ur-chrysanthemum  (C. 
indicum  Linn. — partim — or  C.  morifolium 
Ram.),  from  which  all  modern  forms  are 
derived.  It  has  an  exceedingly  beautiful 
though  small  blossom,  and  one  could  not  but 
regret  that  the  horticulturists  had  not  left  the 
lovely  blossom  alone,  instead  of  breeding  it 
into  many-coloured  monsters,  which  so  singu- 
larly mimic  their  own  paper  imitations. 

In  the  evening  we   left  for  Lexington, 
Kentucky. 


A  Vice-Chancellor        107 
Thursday,  November  2ist 

Everywhere  had  we  been  received 
well  and  more  than  well,  but  at  Lexington 
there  was  a  warm-heartedness  about  our 
hosts  which  made  us  feel  at  once  inhabitants 
of  "My  old  Kentucky  home."  We  motored 
out  some  twenty  miles  to  the  Shaker 
Village,  where  we  fed  on  the  dishes  of  the 
South,  and  very  good  dishes  too,  in  a  stately 
house  with  well-proportioned  rooms,  with  a 
fine  hall  and  ample  staircase,  and  the  date 
1817  over  the  lintel  of  the  front  door.  On 
the  road  we  passed,  what  we  had  not  passed 
before,  the  homes  of  country  gentlemen  who 
live  in  them,  and  do  not  merely  sleep  a 
"week-end"  in  them.  Here  they  breed  race- 
horses and  race  them,  and  raise  tobacco  and 
smoke  it;  in  fact,  Lexington  is  both  a  social 
and  a  trading  centre.  This  possibly  accounts 
for  the  excellence  of  the  first-rate  hotel  where 
we  were  housed. 


io8  The  Voyage  of 

On  returning  we  saw  something  of  the 
University  buildings,  and  inspected  the  Stu- 
dents' Army  Training  Corps,  now  all  eager 
to  get  out  of  khaki.  At  dinner  we  were 
cheered  by  nigger  minstrelsy  and  by  a  mini- 
mum of  speeches.  Afterwards  we  had  a  dis- 
cussion with  some  of  the  Governors  and 
members  of  the  Faculty.  The  value  of  these 
discussions  is  always  inversely  proportional 
to  the  size  of  the  meeting.  At  Lexington  the 
meeting  was  small. 

Friday,  November  22nd 

After  a  hurried  visit  to  the  University 
Farm,  where  we  were  introduced  to  a  hen 
of  unparalleled  fecundity,  and  to  the  Schools 
of  Agriculture  and'  Engineering,  we  left  in 
the  morning  for  New  Orleans,  sorry  to  say 
good-bye  to  Kentucky. 

"The  way  of  the  transgressor  is  hard," 
said  the  coal-merchant  to  me  as  we  sat  in  the 


A  V ice-Chancellor        109 

minute  smoking  compartment  of  the  observa- 
tion car.  "Last  night,"  he  continued,  "I  dis- 
sipated some,  and  all  this  morning  I've  been 
feeling  mighty  sick.  Them  folks  that  wrote 
the  old  Bible  were  smart,  Sir,  they  knew  all 
about  human  frailties,  same  as  you  and  me." 

I  don't  believe  that  I  should  have  known 
that  he  was  a  coal-merchant  but  that  he  in- 
formed me  that  most  folk  liked  to  talk  about 
what  they  traded  in,  and  he  talked  about 
coal.  He  took  a  profound  interest  in  a  pile 
of  coal  at  one  of  the  depots  we  halted  at. 
To  me  it  seemed  much  the  same  as  any  other 
coal-dump,  and  it  only  appealed  to  me  as  a 
rather  lavish  display  of  what  in  my  country 
is  a  really  rare  mineral.  The  sight  of  a  fun- 
nel or  chute  for  conveying  the  coal  into  the 
trucks  excited  his  enthusiasm.  I  suppose 
there  was  some  money-saving  contrivance 
in  it  which  attracted  him,  but  I  confess, 
whatever  it  was,  it  left  me  cold. 

All  the  day  and  all. the  night  we  traversed 


no  The  Voyage  of 

Kentucky,  Tennessee,  Alabama,  Mississippi, 
until  on — 


Saturday,  November  23rd 

we  pulled  about  noon  into  the  depot 
at  New  Orleans.  Most  of  the  morning  we 
had  been  crossing  great  arms  of  the  sea,  old 
mouths  of  the  Mississippi,  but  now  known 
as  Lake  Pontchartrain,  or  skirting  inland 
waterways,  bayous.  One  wished  we  could 
see  a  crocodile. 

After  all,  there  are  only  two  species  of 
crocodile  in  North  America,  and  one  of  these 
is  an  alligator.  We  couldn't  possibly  see  the 
true  crocodile  (Crocodilus  americanus  Lau- 
renti)  as,  though  it  extends  from  central 
Mexico  to  Equador  and  the  West  Indian 
Islands,  in  the  States  it  lives  only  in  the 
waterways  and  the  salt  water  marshes  of  the 
southern  tip  of  Florida.  It  is  an  agile, 
vicious  beast  but  no  man-eater.  More  slen- 


A  Vice-Chancellor       in 

der  than  the  alligator  and  with  a  pointed 
snout,  it  is  much  more  active  anJ  swift  in  its 
movements.  Its  colour  changes  as  it  ages, 
but  there  is  always  more  olive-green  and  gray 
in  its  pigmentation  than  in  that  of  the  alliga- 
tor. It  was  discovered  only  in  1875.  "Oh! 
What  a  crocodilian  year  was  that!"  as 
Francis  Quarles  exclaims  in  his  "Emblems." 
Quarles  was  a  member  of  my  College, 
Christ's! 

The  last-named  (Alligator  mississippiensis 
[Daudin])  has  more  yellow  and  black 
patches  and  a  broader  head  and  snout.  It 
is  usually  said  that  its  growth  is  slow,  but 
Ditmars'  observations  show  that  the  growth 
in  length  and  in  weight  is  comparatively 
rapid.  This  alligator  extends  from  North 
Carolina  to  Florida  and  as  far  west  as  the 
Rio  Grande  in  Texas,  frequenting  the  low 
swamps  and  rivers  of  the  coast.  Un- 
fortunately it  is  becoming  extinct  and  the 
discovery  that  its  skin  can  be  tanned  and 


112  The  Voyage  of 

made  into  leather  for  bags  and  purses  is 
hastening  its  disappearance.  Two  and  a 
half  million  were  destroyed  in  the  years  1880- 
1894,  chiefly  for  their  skins.  In  the  South 
their  eggs  are  also  eaten,  for,  unfortunately 
for  the  race,  alligators  lay  very  palatable 
eggs  and  their  nests  are  conspicuous  and  eas- 
ily rifled. 

Alone  amongst  reptiles  the  alligator  roars. 
Other  reptiles  hiss  but  the  'gator,  as  the 
coloured  folk  call  him,  emits  a  bellow  which 
in  the  still  night  of  the  South  carries  a  mile 
or  more.  The  voice  of  the  young  is  as  the 
"mooing"  of  a  cow,  but  a  big  male,  ten  feet 
or  more  in  length,  roars  with  a  thunderous 
and  tremulous  blast.  He,  at  the  same  time, 
emits  from  under  his  chin  "fine  steaming  jets 
of  a  powerful  nasty  smelling  fluid"  which 
"float  off  into  the  heavy  miasmatic  atmo- 
sphere of  the  bayou."  The  odour  may  be 
carried  for  miles  and  to  the  negroes  it  always 
signifies  "a  big  oP  'gator." 


A  yice-Chancellor        113 

On  arriving  at  the  Depot  at  New  Orleans 
we  left  immediately  for  Tulane  University 
and  en  route  some  of  us  must  have  fallen  in 
with  a  reporter.  Hitherto  I  have  shown  a 
certain  reticence  about  the  members  of  our 
Commission,  but  now  all  is  discovered! 

The  New  Orleans  Item  has  given  us  away, 
given  us  away  rather  too  generously.  I 
quote  from  its  classic  columns: 

BRITISH  EDUCATORS  VISIT  KEWCOMB 
WITH  DINWIDDIE 


"TUBBING"  IS  PART  OF  BRITISHERS'  PRELIMINARIES  FOR 
TOUR  Of  CITY 


The  British  University  Mission — which  was 
heralded  as  the  British  Education  Mission,  an  er- 
ror, as  the  members  have  to  do  only  with  college 
and  university  work — arrived  in  New  Orleans, 
Saturday  shortly  after  noon,  and  after  a  short  stay 
at  the  Griinewald  for  the  "tubbing,"  which  consti- 
tutes as  much  of  British  formality  as  any  of  their 
other  national  customs,  were  driven  to  Tulane  Uni- 
versity by  Capt.  Edith  Haspel  and  Corporal  Flower 


H4  The  Voyage  of 

of  the  Emergency  Motor  Corps  of  the  American 
Red  Cross. 

"Oh,  I  say,"  said  Sir  H J ,  seeing  the 

Red  Cross  insignia  on  the  cap  of  Captain  Haspel, 
"You're  not  going  to  take  us  to  a  hospital? 
What?" 

But  it  was  to  Newcomb  that  the  party  of  British 
educators  went  after  a  short  stay  at  the  hotel.  Dr. 
Dinwiddie  of  Tulane  and  Dr.  Pierce  Butler  of 
Newcomb  met  the  party  at  the  station  and  accom- 
panied the  five  members  of  the  mission  to  a  lunch- 
eon that  had  been  arranged,  prepared  and  served 
by  members  of  the  domestic  science  class  of  New- 
comb  College. 

"Chilly,  Eh  Wot?" 

As  the  automobile  sped  up  St.  Charles  avenue, 

Reverend  E W ,  Fellow  and  Tutor  of 

Queen's  College,  Oxford,  Member  of  the  Heb- 
domadal History  (sic},  leaned  close  to  Dr.  J 

J ,  Professor  of  Geology  and  Mineralogy, 

Trinity  College,  Dublin,  and  said : 

"It's  beastly  chilly,  Eh  Doctor?" 

"Quite  so,  my  dear  Doctor,  I  had  expected  a 
much  milder  climate,  something  like  Capri,  what?" 

"Righto !" 

Dr.  Dinwiddie  explained  that  this  was  severe 
weather  for  the  early  winter,  but  the  disappoint- 
ment was  evident  in  Dr.  W 's  face.  It  is  the 

winter,  but  the  disappointment  of  the  doctor's  first 
trip  to  America,  and  his  impressions  are  varied. 


A  Vice-Chancellor        115 

"I  rather  expected  to  see  life  of  a  more  tropical 
nature,"  he  said,  "are  there  no  fruits  at  this  time  of 
year,  no  bananas  ?  I  had  expected  to  see  monkeys, 
and  other  tropical  animals  here — I  am  quite  dis- 
appointed, you  know!" 

Ne<w  Orleans  Item. 
2$.  xi.  18. 

"SOLDIEK  LOSES  BUTTON" 

Sir  A S 1  has  with  him  a  Secretary,  a 

young  English  soldier,  blue-eyed,  blond2  and  big. 
Shivers  of  excitement  were  noticed  among  the  girls 
of  Newcomb  when  he  appeared  among  the  older 

members  of  the  Mission.  But  Lieut.  N was 

worried.  "I'm  in  a  deuce  of  a  predicament,"  he 
said,  "I've  lost  a  button  from  my  uniform  and  it 
makes  me  feel  so  undressed,  you  know " 

"Suppose,"  said  Dr.  Dinwiddie,  "that  we  have 
one  of  the  young  ladies  sew  it  on  for  you." 

"I  should  be  most  pleased,"  said  Lieut.  N , 

and  presently  he  was  led  away  in  quest  of  a 
needle,  thread  and  a  girl3  attached. 

"Isn't  it  odd?"  said  Dr.  S when  Lieut. 

N returned  beaming  with  the  glint  of  an  in- 
ternational romance  in  his  blue  eye,  "I,  too,  have 
lost  a  button!" 

*The  kindly  Southerner  often  grants  honours  which 
are  quite  unmerited. 

2  He  has  black  hair  and  dark  eyes  but  something  must 
be  sacrificed  to  alliteration. 

*  A  friendly  negress  of  mature  charms. 


n6  The  Voyage  of 

We  lunched  as  usual  in  the  Ladies' 
College,  called  after  Miss  H.  S.  Newcomb. 
We  saw  something  of  the  several  depart- 
ments, and  in  that  of  Household  Economy 
I  had  just  time  to  copy  from  the  black- 
board some  recipes  for  salads,  oyster-cock- 
tails, and  other  comforts  before  being  hurried 
along  to  chemistry.  Whilst  eating  the  ad- 
mirable "gumbo,"  a  sort  of  bouilleabaisse 
but  less  fishy,  prepared  by  the  students,  I 
congratulated  myself  that  I  had  done  so. 
We  made  a  few  speeches,  and  were  especially 
interested  in  one  by  the  Dean  of  Newcomb 
Hall,  and  one  by  the  Professor  of  Engineer- 
ing who  was  trained  at  Annapolis,  and  told 
us  of  the  part  our  Admiralty  had  played  in 
training  the  men  who  built  up  the  American 
Navy. 

The  Art  School  at  Newcomb  College  is 
outstanding.  The  Director  is  a  gifted  artist. 
As  in  many  other  American  Universities, 
ceramics  take  a  leading  part  in  the  art 


A  Vice-Chancellor        117 

students'  course,  but  embroidery,  church  vest- 
ments, metal  work,  and  jewellery  are  also 
studied,  besides  painting  and  modelling.  A 
student  with  a  taste  for  any  of  the  so-called 
"Arts  and  Crafts"  can  pay  her  way  through 
College  after  her  sophomore  year  and  has 
no  difficulty  in  making  a  living  after  grad- 
uating. Indeed,  the  Dean  of  Newcomb 
College  told  us  he  could  "place"  double  the 
number  of  graduates  were  the  College  twice 
as  big. 

We  are  on  the  30  parallel,  well  south  of 
the  Canary  Islands  and  of  Cairo,  yet  it  is 
cold,  bleak  and,  worst  of  all,  wet.  In  spite 
of  this,  I  was  able  to  see  enough  of  the  city 
to  prove  in  my  eyes  it  is  the  most  beautiful 
of  the  many  cities  I  have  visited  in  the 
United  States  during  the  last  thirty-two 
years.  The  wonderful  avenues  with  grass 
down  the  middle,  and  palms  down  the  sides, 
the  luxurious  gardens  which  form  a  setting 
for  the  houses  of  the  well-to-do,  all  open 


n8  The  Voyage  of 

to  the  public  gaze,  make  a  whole  which, 
to  one  with  a  soul  inclining  as  Lowell  says 
"to  the  southern  slope,"  is  irresistible. 

We  dined  with  the  President  of  Tulane 
and  heard  some  charming  negro  melodies, 
mostly  of  the  revivalist  sort.  Just  now 
"negro-spirituals"  are  the  fashion,  especially 
in  the  North. 

Some  of  the  experiences  of  the  darkie  at 
the  Front  are  striking.  A  bunch  of  corre- 
spondents there  came  across  a  big  black 
Corporal  suffering  from  the  effects  of  high 
explosives  and  asked  what  they  could  do  to 
help.  "Well,  suh,  boss,  I  don'  jess  rightly 
know  whut  ail  me.  Well,  suh,  yeh  know, 
dee  sawnt  us  up  yonder  a  little  piece.  We 
wus  dere  fur  two  days  wid  dem  big  shells 
jess  bustin'  up  de  town:  and  dee  had  tole 
us  to  git  under  kiver  when  er  shell  come. 
Well,  suh,  boss,  I  wus  out  dere,  an'  de 
shells  commence  ter  come  an'  I  went  fer  to 
git  under  kiver.  Mos'  all  de  houses  wus 


A  Vice-Chancellor        119 

gone,  blowed  plumb  down;  but  I  seen  one 
dese  here  places  whut  de  calls  a  Tavern — 
you  know,  boss,  dat  means  er  saloon.  Dey 
wa'n't  no  folks  in  hit,  but  I  jess  made  up 
my  min'  I  wus  gwine  git  in  dat  house.  An* 
I  reach  out  my  han'  fer  de  door  knob.  AnJ 
jess  when  I  gits  ready  to  open  de  do' — Blim 
— Blim — Blooy — here  come  er  shell  an'  jess 
tuck  dat  saloon  out  uv  my  han'." 

During  the  evening  we  had  an  informal 
talk  at  the  Round  Table  Club  and  here  we 
met  many  interesting  and  leading  citizens  of 
New  Orleans.  The  President  of  Tulane  is 
a  man  of  few  words,  but  has  a  remarkable 
power  of  hitting  a  nail  on  the  head.  He 
certainly  made  us  think  as  he  pointed  out 
certain  snags  in  our  way. 

Sunday,  November  24th 

To-day  was  glorious,  bright  sunshine 
and  clear  air.     The  Boy  and  I  visited  the 


120  The  Voyage  of 

French  quarter  and  found  it  picturesque  but 
decayed.  It  simply  exuded  romance  and 
obviously  we  must  all  read  George  Cable's 
stories  all  over  again.  We  attended  a 
service  at  the  Cathedral  and  then  sat  in  the 
sun  and  were  daguerreotyped,  and  had  a 
group  of  piccaninnies  similarly  treated.  I 
had  thought  this  was  a  dead  art,  but  it  isn't 
and  it  was  delightful  tc  see  the  old  daguer- 
reotypist  fishing  our  pictures  on  little  metal 
plates  by  means  of  a  magnet  out  of  a  pail 
with  some  solution  in  it.  The  little  darkies 
guessed  we  were  French  and  then  Italian, 
and  their  powers  of  speculation  being  by  now 
exhausted,  we  told  them  that  we  were 
English.  Immediately  they  took  the  Boy  to 
be  the  Prince  of  Wales  and  guessed  he  was 
mighty  glad  to  be  out  of  that  battle  and 
assured  us  that  they  would  have  felt  the  same 
in  similar  circumstances.  We  also  visited 
the  fruit  market,  a  riot  of  colour. 

In  the  afternoon  we  attended  a  conference 


A  V ice-Chancellor       121 

in  the  Gold  Room  of  our  Hotel,  the  most 
charming  feature  of  which  was  the  beautiful 
singing  of  our  lady  hostesses. 

In  the  evening  we  left  in  a  private  car 
for  Houston,  Texas. 

Monday,  November  25th 

My  "Cambridge  Pocket  Diary"  re- 
cords that  to-day  the  "Inns  of  Court  Michael- 
mas (Dining)  Term  ends."  Such  a  statement 
makes  one  feel  homesick.  It  is  so  essentially 
English.  Surely  in  no  other  country  in  the 
world  could  such  an  event  happen.  Princi- 
palities and  powers  are  tottering,  crowns 
are  crashing  and  the  "Inns  of  Court  Michael- 
mas (Dining)  Term  ends"  on  the  normal 
date. 

The  weather  adds  to  our  nostalgia  for  it 
is  foggy,  wet  and  cold,  not  at  all  the  weather 
for  the  Hispano-moresque  buildings  of  the 
Rice  Institution  (by  Cram)  which  demand  a 
blazing  sun  and  blue  sky. 


122  Jhe  Voyage  of 

They  are  indeed  wonderful  buildings  and 
recalled  Browning's  lines: 

A  sort  of  temple — perhaps  a  college, 

— Like  nothing  I  ever  saw  before 

At  home  in  England,  to  my  knowledge. 

Christmas  Eve  and  Easter  Day. 

After  a  formal  reception  in  the  Faculty 
Chamber  we  lunched  with  the  Mayor  and 
Municipality  at  the  huge  Rice  Hotel,  which 
would  be  conspicuous  even  in  New  York. 
Houston  is  a  comparatively  new  city  but  its 
enterprise  is  boundless.  In  the  afternoon  I 
gave  a  lecture  to  a  crowded  audience  on 
"The  Depths  of  the  Sea."  The  hearers  were 
very  patient  and  very  appreciative. 

We  are  staying  in  a  most  charming  house, 
one  of  the  most  comfortable  I  have  ever  been 
in,  and  one  feels  absolutely  at  home  but  with 
superadded  comforts.  The  flowers  alone 
are  a  joy  after  days  of  flawless  hotels  and 
trains.  In  the  evening  there  was  a  reception 
and  here  we  met  the  Governor  of  the  State 


A  Vice-Chancellor        123 

and  many  others  with  whom  we  had  all  too 
little  time  to  talk. 

Tuesday,  November  26th 

Conferences  and  lectures  took  up 
much  of  the  day  but  their  rigour  was 
mitigated  by  a  luncheon  give  us  by  the 
Chamber  of  Commerce.  I  always  like  talking 
to  business  men;  somehow  they  seem  more 
easily  pleased  than  their  academic  brothers. 
The  food  controller  of  Texas  gave  a  stimu- 
lating address  on  the  success  of  the  efforts 
made  in  this  respect  in  the  State,  and  some 
striking  statistics  of  the  food  shortage  which 
still  obtains  throughout  the  Old  World. 
A  well-attended  smoking  concert  at  the 
roomy  University  Club,  with  more  short 
addresses,  closed  a  somewhat  strenuous  day. 

Wednesday,  November  27th 

All  the  morning  we  held  a  series  of 
discussions  and  conferences  on  a  "League 


124  The  Yoyage  of 

of  Nations,"  a  "Federation  of  Churches," 
a  "League  of  Learning."  No  one  will 
clearly  define  what  the  suggested  "League 
of  Nations"  is  to  be,  and  no  one  will  tell 
us  if  the  Central  Powers  of  Europe  are  to 
be  leaguers  or  not.  After  all,  no  one  knows 
whether  there  will  be  many  nations  in 
what  was  Russia  or  many  in  what  was 
Germany,  so  the  discussion  is  a  little  pre- 
mature. Still,  a  good  many  find  the  phrase, 
as  the  old  lady  found  the  word  Mesopo- 
tamia, helpful  and  soothing. 

We  lunched  at  the  invitation  of  the  City 
Board  of  Education  at  the  South  End 
Junior  High  School.  The  Republic  of 
Texas  (1836-48)  split  off  from  the  mother 
country  Mexico  for  many  reasons;  one,  and 
this  is  surely  unique  amongst  rebelling 
States,  was  that  the  Central  Government 
did  not  supply  the  people  with  sufficient 
public  schools.  This  deficiency  is  now  made 
good,  but  generous  as  the  tax-payer  is  to. 


A  Vice-Chancellor       125 

education,  it  is  difficult  to  keep  pace  with 
the  growth  of  the  people  and  the  deep-rooted 
determination  to  educate  their  children.  The 
school  where  we  found  ourselves  was  a  fine 
building  standing  in  spacious  grounds.  In- 
side were  wide  corridors,  ample  staircases, 
well-proportioned  class-rooms,  a  magnificent 
gymnasium  and  swimming  bath.  The  care 
of  the  body  is  only  second,  perhaps  not 
always  second,  to  the  care  of  the  mind  in 
American  schools  and  colleges. 

Thursday,  November  28th 

Thanksgiving  Day. 

And  very  real  thanksgivings  were  given 
on  this  most  memorable  day.  A  spirit  of 
rest  and  relief  was  in  the  land.  We  have 
been  over  here  just  fifty  days,  we  have  visited 
about  fifty  Universities,  we  have  travelled 
some  five  thousand  miles,  and  have  met  some 
fifty  thousand  professors,  or  so  it  seemed  tc 


126  The  Voyage  of 

me,  and  we  were  tired  and  rather  New- 
World-worn.  Hence  we  accepted  the  kind 
invitation  of  our  more  than  kind  host  and 
took  a  couple  of  days  off.  We  were  rewarded 
and  our  proceeding  was  sanctioned  by  the 
weather,  for  we  had  a  typical  Texan  day,  a 
warm  sun,  a  cool  but  not  cold  day,  and  a 
cloudless  blue  sky. 

The  officers  of  the  57th  Regiment  invited 
me  to  a  dinner  and  dance  they  were  giving 
to  the  General  in  command.  It  was  an 
admirably  managed  affair.  The  meal  was 
served  on  long  tables  set  around  the  ball- 
room and  between  each  course  the  young 
people  danced  to  the  music  of  the  regimental 
band.  I  felt  quite  like  an  ancient  Roman. 

Sydney  Smith  used  to  say  that  the  highest 
form  of  human  happiness  was  "eating  pate- 
de-foie  gras  to  the  sound  of  trumpets."  I 
have  never  tried  this,  but  I  feel  convinced 
that  eating  pineapple-salad  to  the  dance 


A  Vice-Chancellor       127 

music  of  the  57 th  Regiment's  band  makes  a 
very  good  second. 

Friday,  November  29th 

After  fixing  up  our  tickets  for  the 
journey  to  Boston  I  had  time  to  visit  the 
hospital  at  the  Logan  Camp.  The  wards 
are  "open  air"  and  the  abundance  of  mos- 
quito wiring  was  evidence  of  a  trouble  from 
which  we  at  home  are  almost  free.  The 
kitchen,  with  every  conceivable  device  to 
save  labour,  was  spotlessly  clean  and  owing 
to  a  native  skill  in  cooking  and  an  abundance 
of  most  varied  foods,  the  patients  are  better 
fed  than  with  us. 

We  felt  sorry  to  leave  Houston.  Our 
hosts  were  kind  beyond  measure.  They  all 
conspired  to  make  us  feel  we  were  not  guests 
but  members  and  popular  members  of  the 
family,  and  they  fully  succeeded.  We  were 
sorry  to  leave  "the  darkies,"  they  were  so 
willing  to  help  and  so  anxious  to  oblige. 


128  The  Voyage  of 

As  they  told  our  hostess,  they  knew  at  once 
we  were  English  because  they  could  not 
understand  a  single  word  we  said.  Their 
smile  and  general  cheerfulness  deserve  many 
marks.  Their  philosophy  ought  to  teach  us 
a  lesson.  One  who  was  asked  why  negroes 
never  commit  suicide  replied,  "Well,  Boss, 
it's  jes'  lik'  dis — White  man  sit  down  an' 
worries  about  his  troubles  till  he  jes'  goes 
an'  shoots  hisself.  Niggah  sit  down  and 
worries  about  his  troubles  an'  jes'  nachally 
fall  asleep."  Surely  the  better  way. 

Saturday,  November  3Oth 

St.  Andrew's  Day. 

We  traversed  half  of  Texas  in  the  night, 
and  part  of  Louisiana;  at  New  Orleans  we 
changed  trains  and  Depots  early  in  the  morn- 
ing and  then  we  traversed  Mississippi.  Until 
we  had  left  Mobile  we  were  never  far  from 
the  Gulf,  and  we  were  passing  through 


A  Vice-Chancellor       129 

scenery  like  that  of  the  everglades  of  Florida. 
We  saw  innumerable  sluggish  waterways, 
turbid,  almost  stagnant,  streams  with  low 
muddy  banks,  the  flat  land  clothed  with  a 
tangle  of  sub-tropical  vegetation,  the  trees, 
never  large,  bearded  with  streamy  lichens, 
"Spanish-moss"  as  the  term  goes,  stood  out 
of  a  matted  impenetrable  undergrowth  still 
green  but  so  tired-looking!  Except  for  the 
buzzards,  which  are  ubiquitous,  we  saw  little 
or  no  bird  life. 

Alabama  provided  us  with  such  a  sunset 
as  I  have  never  before  seen,  not  even  in 
South  Africa  or  in  Egypt.  A  vast  continent 
of  molten  gold,  with  opal  lakes  and  inlets 
of  the  sea,  and  here  and  there  black  patches 
like  cities  set  on  their  shores.  No  words  can 
describe  it.  Some  one  placed  "in  a  golden 
chair"  had  splashed  "at  a  ten-league  canvas 
with  brushes  of  comets'  hair."  It  lasted  fully 
an  hour,  but  only  the  Boy  and  the  Knight 
and  I  watched  it.  Its  glory  was  concealed 


130          The  Voyage  of 

from  our  fellow-travellers  who  for  most  part 
slumbered  and  slept. 

Sunday,  December  1st 

On  a  Pullman  car  one  learns  much 
about  the  legislation  of  the  several  States. 
The  varying  injunctions  are  printed  on  the 
bills-of-fare  and  suggest  fertile  subjects  of 
conversation  with  one's  fellow-travellers. 
For  instance,  it  is  forbidden  in  Tennessee 
and  in  Indiana  to  sell  cigarettes.  Apparently 
one  may  buy  them  and  the  tobacco  shops  are 
open  and  flourish,  but  their  sale  is  forbidden. 
We  kept  east  of  Tennessee  and  were  quite  a 
long  way  off  Indiana.  In  Georgia  the  Legis- 
lature has  forbidden  all  tipping,  but  we  only 
passed  through  a  corner  of  Georgia  and  the 
kindly  railway  authorities,  ever  mindful  of 
the  welfare  of  their  dining-car  waiters,  had 
so  arranged  the  time-table  that  we  passed 
through  this  corner  between  meals. 

When  I  first  arrived  in  New  York,  thirty- 


A  Vice-Chancellor       131 

two  years  ago,  I  put  up  at  the  Windsor 
Hotel,  long  since  burned  down.  Tipping 
was  not  very  prevalent  in  those  days.  There 
was  a  kind  of  attitude  of  a  people  "too 
proud"  to  tip,  though  I  have  never  actually 
met  anyone  who  refused  to  take  one.  Still, 
you  didn't  tip  the  men  who  looked  after  your 
hat  whilst  you  were  dining.  These  were  very 
wonderful  men.  They  gave  you  no  check, 
and  as  you  left  the  dining-room  they  prided 
themselves  on  handing  you  back  the  right 
hat.  Coming  out  just  before  me  a  gentle- 
man received  a  hat  which  made  him  exclaim : 
"That's  not  my  hat!"  "I  don't  know  whether 
it's  your  hat  or  not,"  said  the  hat  man,  "it's 
the  hat  you  g've  me !"  Nowadays  you  very 
soon  spend  the  cost  of  your  hat  in  gratifying 
the  hat-guardians  if  you  lunch  or  dine  in 
restaurants  or  hotels  at  all  frequently. 

You  now  receive  a  check  but  the  checking 
is  not  so  accurate  as  the  hatmen  of  the 
'eighties.  Coming  away  the  other  day  after 


132  The  Voyage  of 

lunch  one  heard  a  fellow-luncher  saying  to 
his  companion,  "What  on  earth  did  you  give 
that  fellow  ten  dollars  for?"  "Well,  look  at 
that  coat  he  has  given  me,"  was  the  response, 
as  the  happy  tipper  exhibited  a  five-hundred 
dollar  fur-lined  coat. 

All  through  Georgia  and  the  two  Carolinas 
the  cotton  crops  were  awaiting  picking. 
What  with  one  thing  and  another  the  harvest 
down  south  lasts  half  the  year.  We  passed 
a  number  of  modern  cotton  factories  en- 
gaged, as  the  conductor  told  us,  in  the  manu- 
facture of  "domestics."  At  Lynchburg,  Va., 
we  bought  some  persimmons,  but  eating  per- 
simmons is  to  "snatch  a  fearful  joy"  and  we 
soon  desisted. 


Monday,  December  2nd 

Owing  to  engine  trouble  we  were  late 
in  reaching  Washington;  however  we  did 
get  there  between  2  and  3  A.M.,  and  found 


A  Vice-Chancellor        133 

the  city,  on  the  eve  of  the  President's  fare- 
well address,  fast  asleep.  During  the  morn- 
ing we  went  shopping,  saw  some  old  friends 
and  some  Senators.  No  matter  where  they 
come  from,  Senators  seem  to  acquire  a  certain 
"facies"  as  zoologists  term  it,  something 
between  that  of  a  popular  preacher  and  an 
important  tragedian.  They  are  readily  rec- 
ognised by  a  systematist. 

We  visited  the  enormous  grounds  of  the 
Bureau  of  Standards,  covered  with  countless 
laboratories  in  which  every  conceivable 
article  used  by  the  Government  is  tested  and 
analysed.  We  also  saw  the  well-equipped 
Zoological  Gardens,  open  free  to  all,  main- 
tained "by  the  people  and  for  the  people." 

In  the  evening  we  left  for  Boston,  our 
fourth  consecutive  night  on  the  cars. 

Tuesday,  December  3rd 

We  were  put  up  again  in  our  old 
home  at  Cambridge  by  the  ever  hospitable 


134  The  Voyage  of 

President  of  Harvard  and  his  kindly  wife, 
and  were  delighted  to  find  there  was  for  one 
day  nothing  particular  to  do,  and  in  the 
words  of  the  poet  we  "did  it  very  well." 


Wednesday,  December  4th 

This  morning  we  attended  the  twen- 
tieth Annual  Meeting  of  the  "Association 
of  American  Universities"  which  consists  of 
the  Presidents  and  certain  of  the  Deans  of 
the  several  Universities.  It  is  perhaps  the 
most  important  educational  body  we  met, 
and  the  discussions  in  which  we  took  part 
were  on  a  high  level.  In  the  evening  we 
were  hospitably  entertained  at  the  Harvard 
Club. 

The  witty  and  good-humoured  "sparring" 
between  the  Presidents  of  two  of  the  oldest 
American  Universities  called  to  my  mind  in 
an  inverted  sort  of  way  a  conversation 
between  two  wealthy  New  Yorkers,  both  of 


A  Vice-Chancellor        135 

whom  were  wedded  to  wives  with  social  am- 
bitions. "Is  your  wife  entertaining  this 
season*?"  said  one  to  the  other,  about  Christ- 
mas time;  "Not  very,"  was  the  sad  reply. 

Thursday,  December  5th 

Neither  the  Boy  nor  I  have  quite  got 
over  our  four  days'  continuous  trip  from 
Texas  to  Massachusetts.  He  has  been  writ- 
ing and  reading  most  of  the  time  and  revel- 
ling in  certain  rare  early  editions  of  Edgar 
Allan  Poe  which  he  has  found  in  the  Harvard 
University  Library.  I  have  felt  so  tired  that 
to-day  I  stopped  in  bed  until  tea-time.  I  feel 
as  Pinkerton  did,  "I  want  to  lie  on  my  back 
in  a  garden  and  read  Shakespeare  and  E.  P. 
Roe,"  only  it's  snowing  outside. 

This  meeting  of  the  "Association  of  Am- 
erican Universities"  is  the  last  item  of  our 
official  programme  and  we  rather  character- 
istically brought  our  Mission  to  an  end  by 


136  The  Voyage  of 

cutting  a  Session  of  the  Deans  in  the  evening. 
It  was  snowing  heavily  out-of-doors  and  we 
stopped  at  home — for  it  is  a  home — turned 
down  the  lights  and  told  ghost  stories. 

This  seems  a  suitable  date  to  close  this 
diary.  We  shall  have,  by  the  time  we  reach 
home,  travelled  about  twice  the  diameter  of 
the  earth,  and  everywhere  we  have  met 
friends,  and  nearly  everywhere  we  had  fine 
weather,  for  the  heavens  smiled  on  our 
Mission. 

A  highland  minister,  a  mystic  and  a  man 
of  blameless  life,  went  out  to  the  Front  as 
"padre"  to  a  regiment  largely  recruited  from 
his  district.  He  was  one  of  those  unhappy 
mortals  who  believed  that  for  him  there  was 
no  hope.  Every  now  and  then  he  could  not 
refrain  from  seeking  human  sympathy,  and 
one  day,  pouring  out  his  troubles  to  a  blue- 
eyed  subaltern,  he  ended  his  discourse  by 
saying,  "I  veritably  believe  I  am  the  wicked- 
est man  in  France."  "Yes,  Sir."  said  the 


A  Vice-Chancellor        137 

boy,  "but  you  must  remember  what  a  deuce 
of  a  good  time  you  must  have  had." 

I  think  we  shall  all  go  back  to  our  country 
remembering  "what  a  deuce  of  a  good  time" 
we  have  had. 

And  here,  if  I  may  quote  the  words  of 
the  unknown  author  of  the  Maccabees: 

And  here  will  I  make  an  end, 

And  if  I  have  done  well,  and  as  is  fitting  the 
story  it  is  that  which  I  desired,  and  if  slenderly  and 
meanly,  it  is  that  which  I  could  attain  unto.  .  .  . 
And  as  wine  mingled  with  water  is  pleasant  and 
delighteth  the  taste,  even  so  speech,  finely  framed, 
delighteth  the  ears  of  them  that  read  the  story. 

And  here  shall  be  an  end. 


University  Education  in 
the  United  States 


University  Education  in 
the  United  States 

THE    universities    in    America    and 
Canada  have  been  built  up  on  very 
much  the  same  plan,  and  what  is 
said  in  this  article  applies  almost  equally  to 
both  the  States  and  the  Dominion.    In  their 
constitution  and  start  they  vary  inter  se  as 
much   as   do   the  universities   of   England, 
Scotland,  and  Ireland.    This  is  equally  true 
of  their  curricula  and  of  their  buildings. 

Let  us  consider,  in  the  first  place,  the 
buildings.  These  are  sometimes  in  the  heart 
of  a  big  city,  like  Columbia  University  in 
New  York  City,  Chicago  University,  Yale  in 
New  Haven,  the  University  of  Tulane  in 
New  Orleans,  Harvard  in  Cambridge,  and 
many  others.  Sometimes  they  are  in  small 


142    University  Education  in 

towns  hardly  larger  than  villages,  as  in  the 
case  of  Princeton  and  the  North-Western 
University  at  Evanston,  Illinois,  and  the 
University  of  Wisconsin  at  Madison.  Some- 
times the  buildings  are  scattered  over  large 
areas,  and  some  of  the  departmental  build- 
ings may  be  separated  from  the  main  univer- 
sity by  many  miles.  At  the  North-Western 
University  just  mentioned,  the  Schools  of 
Medicine  and  Law  are  situate  in  the  heart  of 
Chicago,  perhaps  fifteen  miles  away  from  the 
central  institution. 

As  a  rule  the  ground  upon  which  the  build- 
ings are  scattered  is  called  the  "campus,"  but 
at  Harvard  it  is  known  as  the  "yard,"  and  a 
Harvard  man  is  as  irritated  by  a  stranger 
calling  his  "yard"  the  "campus"  as  is  a  Cam- 
bridge man  when  anyone  applies  to  his 
College  "courts"  the  Oxford  term  "quads." 
The  size  of  the  universities  also  differs  great- 
ly. There  are  some  with  seven,  or  even  more, 
thousand  students.  There  are  other  institu- 


The  United  States         143 

tions  of  university  standing  with  only  a  few 
hundreds.  But  no  American  is  frightened  by 
size ;  and  some  of  the  leading  educationists  in 
the  United  States  contemplate  without  a 
qualm  the  growth  of  their  institutions  and 
the  number  of  their  students  until  they  reach 
twenty  or  thirty,  or  even  forty  thousand.  It 
is  not,  however,  easy  to  get  at  really  definite 
numbers,  i.e.,  the  number  of  students  who 
are  actually  reading  for  degrees.  The  Sum- 
mer Courses,  which  are  a  great  feature  in 
some  universities,  and  do  not  exist  at  all  in 
others,  swell  these  numbers;  but  the  summer 
visitor  is  seldom  reading  for  a  degree. 
Indeed,  I  came  across  one  lady  who  helped 
in  this  direction  by  taking  her  "summer 
course"  of  swimming  in  the  really  admirable 
university  swimming-baths  in  the  heart  of 
one  of  the  most  heated  cities  of  the  Eastern 
coast. 

The  older  universities,  such  as  Yale  and 
Harvard,  have  a  certain  pride  of  antiquity 


144    University  Education  in 

and  of  race,  and  just  as  we  are  apt  to  say  in 
England,  "  He  must  be  a  Duke  or  he  couldn't 
afford  to  'dress  so  shabbily,'  "  so  they  seem  to 
exhibit  a  certain  indifference  to  appearances. 
Some  of  their  buildings  are  charming  and 
suitable,  others  struck  one  as  wanting  closing 
"for  cleaning  and  'repairs.'  "  They  are  scat- 
tered about  in  great  commercial  cities,  and 
they  almost  necessarily  lack  unity  of  design. 
Places  like  the  University  of  Chicago  and 
the  Washington  University  at  St.  Louis,  or 
the  Rice  Institute  of  Texas,  have  been  built 
at  one  time  and  by  one  architect,  or  at  any 
rate  by  one  firm  of  architects,  and  they  have 
a  unity  in  architecture  and  in  proportion. 

The  Roman  Catholic  universities  seem  to 
be  particularly  successful  in  selecting  beauti- 
ful sites,  with  wide  vistas  both  of  town  and 
country.  They  show  an  abiding  faith,  they 
build  for  all  time,  and  they  will  wait  for 
years  to  get  the  site  they  desire.  Some  of 
the  chapels  and  public  rooms  in  these  in- 


The  United  States         145 

stitutions  are  most  charmingly  decorated. 
Some  of  the  newly  built  universities,  such 
as  Columbia,  the  Rice  Institute  in  Texas 
(for  it  is  in  effect  a  university),  the  Wash- 
ington University  at  St.  Louis,  have  very 
noble  approaches ;  long  spacious  avenues,  and 
stately  steps  lead  to  their  portals.  Mechani- 
cal locomotion  is  now  so  universal  in  America 
that  the  authorities  do  not  hesitate  to  "pitch 
their  tent"  well  out  into  the  country,  and 
usually  on  a  height  with  a  commanding  view. 
The  American  is  bold  in  his  plans,  and 
buildings  like  the  Massachusetts  Technologi- 
cal Institute  or  Harvard  Medical  School  are 
notable  additions  to  the  architecture  of  no- 
table towns.  As  a  rule  within  the  buildings 
the  staircases  and  passages  are  wide  and 
spacious;  elevators  abound;  and  drinking 
water  is  laid  down  which  bubbles  up  at 
frequent  fountains.  The  dryness  of  the  at- 
mosphere in  the  rooms,  which  to  the  Euro- 
pean seem  very  overheated,  makes  this  pro- 

10 


146    University  Education  in 

vision  necessary.  A  curious  feature  of  Amer- 
ican life  is  a  distrust  of  the  sun.  The  sun 
in  the  United  States  is  a  national  asset,  but 
even  in  the  middle  of  the  day  the  blinds  will 
be  drawn  half-way  down  the  windows  and 
then  the  natural  light  of  the  heavens  is  sup- 
plemented by  artificial  illumination.  Even 
if  one  left  one's  hotel  room  for  half  an  hour, 
one  always  found  on  returning  the  blinds 
which  one  had  drawn  up  were  carefully  and 
accurately  drawn  half-way  down  again.  The 
lecture  rooms  are,  as  a  rule,  admirably 
adapted  for  their  purpose,  and  the  larger 
ones  seem  to  possess  almost  perfect  acoustic 
properties.  The  sitting  accommodation  is 
also  a  great  improvement  on  the  usual 
benches  or  chairs  of  European  institutions. 

In  the  last  thirty  years  great  efforts  have 
been  made  to  introduce  artistic  features  into 
the  colleges,  and  even  into  some  of  the  busi- 
ness rooms,  and  especially  is  this  the  case  in 
some  of  the  ladies'  establishments.  Their 


The  United  States         147 

bigger  halls  are  decorated  with  really  fine 
frescoes,  or  hung  with  noble  pictures.  The 
university  libraries  are  on  a  very  large  scale. 
The  books  are  easily  and  readily  accessible. 
Any  book  that  one  requires  is  found  for  one 
in  an  astonishingly  short  time,  but  access  to 
the  shelves,  which  is  such  an  enormous  con- 
venience to  the  student  in  the  University  of 
Cambridge,  is  not  usually  allowed.  One 
feature  of  the  more  modern  libraries  is  that 
each  professor  has  a  room  assigned  to  him 
within  its  walls.  True,  it  is  generally  a  small 
room,  but  it  enables  him  to  meet  his  pupils 
in  the  library,  and  to  draw  their  attention  to 
literature  "ancient  and  modern."  The  libra- 
ries are  open  longer  than  with  us — from  9 
A.M.  till  10  P.M.  At  a  ladies'  college  we  heard 
that  the  library  was  open  night  and  day,  so 
that  if  a  student  had  a  brilliant  idea  in  the 
middle  of  the  night,  she  could  fling  on  her 
dressing-gown  and  flv  down  to  the  library  to 
verify  her  references  before  she  forgot  all 


148    University  Education  in 

about  it.  Many  of  these  libraries  have 
special  collections  of  books  which  are  periodi- 
cally sent  for  short  periods  to  country  centres, 
on  somewhat  the  same  system  as  the  Local 
Lectures  Syndicate  at  Cambridge  loans  books 
to  local  centres.  A  good  example  of  such  a 
circulating  library  is  found  in  the  McGill 
University  at  Montreal. 

Some  of  the  colleges  occupy  very  large 
areas,  for  instance  at  Vassar,  at  Poughkeepsie 
on  the  Hudson,  the  campus  contains  more 
acres  than  there  are  lady  students  in  the 
college,  though  there  are  many  of  them.  This 
is  by  no  means  an  isolated  case.  Princeton 
has  lately  bought  up  almost  all  the  land 
between  itself  and  the  main  railway  line, 
and  has  recently  excavated  an  artificial  lake 
three  miles  long  and  in  places  three-quarters 
of  a  mile  wide  with  money  provided  by  Mr. 
Carnegie.  Many  of  the  universities  have 
gigantic  stadia,  capable  of  seating  forty  to 
sixty  thousand  onlookers,  for  athletics  play 


The  United  States         149 

a  very  considerable  part  in  the  life  of  an 
American  university.  Talent  is  got  hold  of, 
and  in  some  cases,  perhaps  not  directly,  is 
subsidised.  Enormous  crowds  collect  together 
to  watch  inter-university  tests,  and  feeling 
runs  very  much  higher  than  with  us.  Many 
alumni  travel  thousands  of  miles  to  watch 
these  matches,  and  to  add  their  voices  to 
their  college  yell,  which  is  considered  to  have 
a  stimulating  effect  on  the  competing  teams. 


It  should  be  understood  that  the  Federal 
Government  does  not  control  education  in 
the  United  States.  To  some  extent  it  co- 
ordinates the  educational  systems  of  the 
different  States,  but  the  chief  function  of  the 
Bureau  of  Education  seems  to  be  to  issue 
reports — and  very  lengthy  and  able  they 
often  are — on  the  education  of  the  whole 
country.  At  present  it  has  little  executive 
power,  and  the  power  controlling  education 


150   University  Education  in 

in  the  United  States  is  split  up  among  forty- 
eight  self-governing  Commonwealths,  or 
forty-nine  if  we  include  the  District  of 
Columbia  where  alone  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment has  control.  Each  State  provides  by 
law  elementary  education  at  the  public 
expense.  Children  generally  enter  the  school 
at  six  or  seven  years  of  age  and  leave  eight 
years  afterwards.  Further,  in  each  State 
there  are  public  secondary  schools  called  high 
schools,  which  .continue  the  education  of  the 
people  for  another  four  years ;  and  it  is  these 
high  schools  that  provide  the  bulk  of  the 
material  for  the  universities.  There  is  a 
recent  and  growing  tendency  for  these  schools 
to  specialise  and  to  train  their  students  in 
"vocational"  courses.  Further,  there  are  "nor- 
mal schools"  occupied  with  the  training  of 
teachers.  Alongside  these  public  institutions 
are  numerous  elementary  schools,  high 
schools,  normal-schools,  and  even  colleges, 
which  are  associated  with  various  religious 


The  United  States         151 

sects.  For  instance,  the  Roman  Catholics 
control  the  education  of  a  million  and  a 
half  students,  and  these  non-public  institu- 
tions are  allowed  perfect  freedom  by  the  laws 
of  every  State.  Such  a  multiplicity  of 
educational  authorities  necessarily  implies 
great  variety  in  the  standards  exacted,  which 
is  usually  lower  in  the  newer  and  Western 
States  than  it  is  in  the  East. 

One  of  the  difficulties  of  understanding 
the  American  universities  arises  from  the  use 
of  the  word  "college"  for  very  widely  differ- 
ing institutions.  Till  the  middle  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  America  did  not  use  the  larger 
word  "university,"  and  was  content  with 
"college."  Universities  practically  did  not 
exist,  or  rather  they  existed,  but  were  calledi 
colleges.  The  oldest  of  these  was  Harvard 
College,  founded  in  1636  by  John  Harvard 
of  Emmanuel  College,  Cambridge,  who  ob- 
tained immortality  perhaps  at  a  cheaper  rate 
than  any  other  human  being,  for  his  endow- 


152    University  Education  in 

ments  only  amounted  to  a  few  hundred 
pounds  and  a  few  books.  These  colleges 
were  founded  largely  on  the  experience  of 
Cambridge,  and  many  of  the  first  teachers 
came  from  East  Anglia.  At  the  beginning 
they  were  content  with  teaching  classics, 
philosophy,  and  mathematics,  and  were  in 
the  main  a  training  centre  for  the  Ministry. 
Later  other  faculties  arose. 

Colleges  developed  into  universities  along 
three  lines  of  evolution.  Whilst  continuing 
to  teach  the  "liberal  arts,"  some  advanced 
further  and  established  special  professional 
schools  of  theology,  law,  and  medicine.  Thus 
they  became  training  grounds  for  professional 
men.  Further,  there  was  a  considerable  de- 
velopment in  pure  and  applied  science.  The 
establishment  of  the  degree  of  B.Sc.  corre- 
sponded with  the  building  up  of  schools  of 
engineering  and  other  strictly  professional 
courses.  But  perhaps  the  principal  change  of 
the  last  fifty  years  has  been  the  foundation  of 


The  United  States         153 

numerous  post-graduate  schools,  largely 
moulded  by  German  influence.  The  dedica- 
tions of  the  Johns  Hopkins  University  at 
Baltimore  in  1867  to  post-graduate  study, 
and  post-graduate  study  alone,  gave  an 
immense  impetus  to  the  development  of 
higher  learning  and  research.  At  the  present 
day  undergraduates  are  admitted  within  its 
walls,  but  this  change  does  not  meet  with 
universal  approval  in  Baltimore.  These  post- 
graduate schools  provide  courses  leading  to 
the  M.A.  and  Ph.D.  degrees. 

The  establishment  of  these  special  colleges 
or  schools  within  a  college  is  more  or  less  a 
critical  period  of  the  metamorphosis  of  a 
college  into  a  university.  Princeton,  which 
was  only  a  college  until  comparatively 
recently,  is  regarded  as  justified  in  assuming 
the  title  of  university,  by  the  formation  of 
its  magnificent  post-graduate  school  under  the 
control  of  Dean  West.  With  the  growth  of 
these  graduate  schools  new  subjects  were 


154   University  Education  in 

introduced.  Columbia  University,  for  in- 
stance, offers  the  B.A.  degree  in  forty-five 
different  subjects,  and  other  universities  in 
almost  as  many. 

The  word  college  is  also  used  by  a  very 
large  number  of  institutions,  some  of  them 
of  considerable  size,  but  as  a  rule  smaller  than 
the  universities,  but  which  play  a  large  part 
in  the  education  of  the  country.  Some  of 
these  colleges  still  retain  a  close  and  restric- 
tive connexion  with  some  religious  denomina- 
tion, but  the  gilded  unsectarianism  of  Mr. 
Carnegie  has  done  much  to  break  this  down. 
Against  this  secularisation  several  of  the 
Quaker  colleges  around  Philadelphia  have 
stood  out,  and  characteristically  have  not 
suffered  in  pocket.  One  of  the  few  educa- 
tional institutions  in  America  which  has  an 
English  clientele  is  the  Quaker  college  of 
Haverford  in  Pennsylvania.  Some  of  the 
leading  Quakers  in  England  regularly  send 


The  United  States         155 

their  sons  to  Haverford  for  their  college 
education. 

In  general  the  main  difference  between  a 
college  and  a  university  may  be  expressed  by 
saying  that  a  college  provides  courses  in  the 
sciences  and  liberal  arts  which  lead  to  a  first 
degree,  such  as  B.A.  or  B.Sc.,  whereas  a 
university  comprises  one  such  college,  and 
also  several  post-collegiate  schools,  the  ad- 
vanced studies  of  which  lead  to  post-graduate 
degrees  in  arts,  sciences  and  professional 
subjects. 

But,  as  already  indicated,  another  striking 
difference  between  the  college  and  the  uni- 
versity is  that  of  size.  Colleges  usually 
number  from  a  hundred  to  five  hundred, 
whereas  the  university  has  many  thousands 
of  students.  Hence  individual  attention  is 
far  more  common  in  a  college  than  in  a  uni- 
versity, and  this  may  possibly  account  for  the 
claim  that  the  colleges  have  produced  a 
larger  -percentage  of  really  eminent  men  and 


156   University  Education  in 

prominent  citizens  in  all  walks  of  life  than 
have  the  universities. 

Members  of  an  American  college  are  pas- 
sionately devoted  to  the  institution  which  has 
nurtured  them.  They  become  almost  fa- 
natical champions  and  partisans  of  their  col- 
legiate homes,  and  generously  attribute  any 
success  they  achieve  in  after  life  to  the  train- 
ing which  they  have  received  there. 

In  every  State  but  one  or  two  there  are 
now  established  State  universities  where  the 
education  is  said  to  be  free — that  is  to  say, 
the  State  pays  for  the  teaching.  The  ex- 
penses of  residence,  clothes,  food,  books, 
college,  and  travel  subscriptions  to  the  vari- 
ous clubs,  of  course  fall  on  the  student.  The 
State  legislatures  control  the  expenditure  of 
the  university,  and  at  Madison  the  professors 
of  the  State  University  of  Wisconsin  and 
the  State  legislators  inhabit  the  same  charm- 
ing little  city  to  their  mutual  and  reciprocal 
advantage. 


The  United  States         157 

Growth  of  the  State  universities,  which 
is  marked  in  recent  years,  is  not  inimical  to 
other  universities  in  the  same  State.  Rather 
it  seems  to  benefit  them  by  producing  a 
healthy  rivalry.  There  is,  of  course,  a 
tendency  in  the  State  universities  to  specialise 
in  directions  which  will  most  help  the  pros- 
perity and  the  well-being  of  the  State  in 
which  they  are  situate,  and  this  is  equally 
true  of  the  civic  universities,  such  as  Cin- 
cinnati and  others.  The  services  of  the  staff 
of  both  State,  civic,  and  endowed  universities 
are  very  much  more  at  the  disposal  of  the 
community,  or  at  any  rate  are  more  called 
upon  than  they  would  be  in  similar  cases  in 
Europe.  The  Federal  Government  fre- 
quently asks  for  and  obtains  the  aid  of  the 
college  and  university  presidents  for  inter- 
national work.  They  are  for  a  time 
"seconded"  and  sent  on  special  missions,  or 
made  for  some  years  ambassadors  at  some 
important  capital.  For  instance,  President 


158    University  Education  in 

Angell,  of  the  University  of  Michigan,  was 
once  ambassador  at  Constantinople,  and  once 
ambassador  at  Pekin,  and  he  further  served 
as  the  head  of  a  very  important  mission  to 
Great  Britain. 

The  medical  schools  in  connexion  with  the 
universities,  such  as  we  have  seen  at  Harvard, 
in  Cincinnati,  and  St.  Louis,  are  the  most 
wonderfully  equipped  that  I  have  come 
across.  What  the  young  doctor  does  when 
he  returns  to  practise  in  his  village  or  small 
township,  having  been  brought  up  in  such 
institutions,  it  is  difficult  to  understand.  In 
the  hospital  he  is  trained  in  the  very  latest 
phase  of  scientific  investigaton  and  medical 
technique ;  at  home  these  resources  are  denied 
him,  even  if  his  patient  could  afford  them. 

In  many  of  the  universities  each  student 
pays  an  annual  tax  of  $5.00,  which  goes  to 
form  a  Students'  Medical  Insurance  Fund 
against  disease  or  accidents.  For  this  sum 
medical  advice  is  given  free,  nursing  is 


The  United  States         159 

supplied  free,  and  housing  in  a  nursing-home, 
and  special  food  for  a  limited  period.  Severe 
and  lengthy  cases  are  charged  extra.  In  one 
of  the  State  universities — Michigan — five 
full-time  doctors  were  occupied  in  attending 
to  the  health  and  hygiene  of  the  students, 
male  and  female. 

Physical  culture  is  carried  on  much  more 
fully  and  universally  than  with  us,  and  in 
the  "land  grant"  State  universities  army 
training  is  in  force  throughout  the  student's 
career. 

Schools  of  journalism  are  common  in 
American  universities,  and  some  of  them  have 
a  very  large  number  of  pupils.  It  is  very 
common  in  the  United  States  to  meet  men  in 
very  substantial  positions  who  started  life  as 
journalists.  Many  of  the  reporters  are 
charmingly  dressed  young  ladies,  which  adds 
to  the  difficulties  of  evading  an  interview. 
Horticulture  is  taught  on  a  large  scale  at 
some  of  the  State  universities,  and  classes  in 


160   University  Education  in 

commerce  are  widely  spread.  Here  account- 
ancy, commercial  law,  stenography,  type- 
writing, and  a  little  history  and  French  are 
taught,  and  these  vocational  studies  are 
somewhat  mitigated  by  the  student  having 
to  take  some  classic  English  author.  One 
friend  of  mine  was  at  the  University  of  Penn- 
sylvania broadening  his  mind  by  reading  the 
classical  works  of  Stevenson  and  of  Kipling, 
but,  I  regret  to  say,  he  did  not  think  much 
of  either  of  them.  At  the  North-Western 
University  there  is  a  School  of  Oratory,  the 
products  of  which  we  had  but  little  oppor- 
tunity of  testing. 

At  the  American  universities  all  cere- 
monial functions  are  carried  out  with  great 
solemnity  and  dignity.  The  students  take 
part  in  the  proceedings  and  act  as  hosts  to  any 
distinguished  guests  that  may  be  giving 
special  lectures  or  receiving  honorary  degrees, 
and  there  is  none  of  that  humorous,  but  to 
the  Public  Orator  trying,  interruption  of  his 


The  United  States         161 

stately  periods.  The  whole  of  the  proceed- 
ings are  most  carefully  thought  out  and  pre- 
ordained. There  is  always  a  University 
Marshal,  generally  one  of  the  senior  profes- 
sors, who  carries  a  baton  and  arranges  the 
procession.  On  these  occasions  the  Univer- 
sity Musical  Club  generally  plays  a  conspicu? 
ous  part,  and  very  often  in  the  large  towns 
the  civic  musical  societies  lend  their  help. 

American  undergraduates  are  very  demo- 
cratic, but  there  is  nothing  very  surprising 
about  that.  It  is  common  feature  of  all 
universities,  even  of  the  oldest,  such  as 
Bologna  or  Paris.  What  is  surprising  is  the 
autocratic  nature  of  the  government  in  all 
their  higher  educational  institutions,  whereas 
Oxford  and  Cambridge  are  so  democratic  that  / 
little  or  no  progress  can  be  made.  In  Eng- 
land every  M.A.  who  keeps  his  name  on  the 
boards  of  his  college — and  these  "boards" 
actually  exist  in  the  form  of  long  planks  with 
the  names  inscribed  in  large  letters — has  a 

11 


162    University  Education  in 

vote  which  he  can  use  as  he  thinks  fit.  The 
body  of  these  M.A.'s,  amounting  to  some 
thousands,  is  the  governing  body  of  these 
ancient  universities.  In  America  each  college 
has  a  President,  though  the  title  varies 
slightly.  For  instance,  there  is  a  Chancellor 
at  the  Washington  University  at  St.  Louis, 
and  a  Provost  at  the  University  of  Penn- 
sylvania. Above  the  President  stand  the 
Trustees  or  Regents,  who  practically  control 
the  finances  of  the  university.  These  trustees 
are  men  of  high  standing  either  in  the  com- 
mercial or  political  world.  It  is  a  great 
honour  to  be  a  trustee  of  a  university,  and 
however  elected,  the  body  is  generally  one  of 
great  distinction,  and  it  works  hard.  Many 
of  the  lavish  endowments  which  pour  into 
these  institutions  are  due  to  the  activities  of 
the  trustees  who  are  expected  to  provide  the 
necessary  dollars.  In  the  Eastern  universities 
the  trustees  generally  co-opt  new  members. 
In  the  State  universities  some  at  least  are 


The  United  States         163 

elected  by  the  people  and  at  the  same  time  as 
the  legislature  is  chosen.  It  is  a  remarkable 
and  rather  regrettable  feature  that  the 
Faculty  is  not  represented  on  this  governing 
body,  for  in  effect  the  latter  really  does 
mould  the  policy  of  the  institution  over 
which  it  presides.  The  link  between  the 
trustees  and  the  professors  is  the  President. 
Sometimes  on  a  small  body  of  trustees,  one 
multi-millionaire,  by  increasing  or  withdraw- 
ing his  financial  support,  can  control  the 
whole  policy  of  the  college,  and  there  are 
cases  where  the  interference  of  the  trustees 
has  not  worked  for  good  in  the  interests  of 
the  college.  The  president  of  a  college  is  as 
autocratic  as  the  captain  of  a  line  or  the 
head  boy  of  an  English  public  school.  He 
can  make  or  unmake  careers,  and  has  a  very 
large  voice  in  the  appointment,  dismissal, 
and  pay  of  the  professors. 

In  each  faculty  or  department  of  the  uni- 
versity there  is  a  Dean — not  necessarily  the 


164   University  Education  in 

most  senior  of  the  professoriate — and  the 
deans  play  an  important  and  conspicuous 
part  in  the  organization  of  their  institution. 
The  deans  have  annual  meetings,  and  appar- 
ently spend  a  good  deal  of  time  in  discussing 
their  presidents.  None  of  the  staff  is  paid 
sufficiently.  As  everywhere  else,  and  as  it 
has  been  for  all  time,  education  is  the  worst 
paid  of  all  human  professions.  "The  cheapest 
thing  going  to-day,"  says  the  Satirist,  "is 
education."  "I  pay  my  cook,"  said  Crates 
ironically,  "four  pounds  a  year ;  but  a  philos- 
opher can  be  hired  for  about  sixpence  and 
a  tutor  for  three  half-pence."  "So  to-day," 
writes  Erasmus,  "a  man  stands  aghast  at  the 
thought  of  paying  for  his  boy's  education  a 
sum  which  would  buy  a  foal  or  hire  a  farm 
servant."  "Frugality — it  is  another  name  for 
madness!"  After  400  years  the  madness  of 
Erasmus  has  not  abated.  The  presidents 
themselves  are  not  adequately  remunerated, 


The  United  States         165 

and  though  some  have  entertainment  allow- 
ances, it  would  go  hard  with  them  if  they 
had  not  other  sources  of  income  than  those 
attached  to  their  posts. 

American  universities  are  not  hampered  by 
tradition.  They  are  willing  to  try  new 
things,  and  if  one  experiment  does  not  suc- 
ceed they  try  another.  For  instance,  Colum- 
bia University  is  so  attracted  by  the  success 
of  the  psychological  tests  used  for  entry  into 
the  American  Air  Force  that  it  is  proposing 
to  give  up  its  entrance  examination,  and  to 
replace  it  by  mechanical  tests,  which  it  claims 
will  be  able  to  show  whether  a  boy  is  capable 
of  profiting  by  a  university  education.  The 
result  of  this  experiment  is  likely  to  prove 
interesting,  and  it  may  possibly  be  extended. 
If  it  does  show  the  capabilities  of  a  boy  who 
undergoes  it,  and  thus  saves  the  expense  and 
worry  of  written  and  oral  examinations,  these 
might  be  done  away  with.  One  foresees  only 
one  danger  in  these  physical  tests.  The  Ameri- 


166   University  Education  in 

can  youth  is  so  alert  and  quick  that  he  not 
infrequently  reacts  before  the  stimulus  is 
applied.  The  historical  first-year  students  of 
the  same  university,  which  is  never  anything 
if  not  up-to-date,  will  in  future  be  required 
to  start  history  with  a  study  of  the  Bolshevist 
disorders  in  the  twentieth  century  and  other 
present-day  problems.  Earlier  periods  will 
be  studied  afterwards,  with  particular  refer- 
ence to  their  bearing  upon  the  events  of 
to-day. 

The  average  entrance  age  to  an  American 
university  is  about  the  same  as  in  England, 
and  the  course  is  a  little  longer.  Three  to 
four  years  are  taken  for  the  B.A.  degree; 
about  three  more  for  the  M.A.  There  is  a 
tendency  to  increase  the  length  of  time 
required  for  the  professional  degrees,  such 
as  those  in  law  and  medicine.  A  candidate 
who  enters  an  American  college  or  university 
is  expected  to  have  spent  four  years  at  a 


The  United  States         167 

High  School,  and  admission  is  given  to  such 
students  as  have  obtained  a  given  number  of 
"units."  A  "unit"  roughly  corresponds  with  a 
quarter  of  a  year's  study  in  any  subject  at 
one  of  these  secondary  schools,  so  that  four 
years'  study  should  produce  sixteen  such 
"units."  A  candidate  has  to  produce  evidence 
at  most  colleges  or  universities  that  he  has 
completed  fourteen  or  sixteen  "units,"  and 
institutions  requiring  less  than  fourteen 
"units"  are  not  regarded  as  in  the  first  class. 
Certain  of  the  colleges  and  universities  in  the 
Eastern  States  have  co-ordinated  their  en- 
trance qualifications  under  a  College  En- 
trance Examination  Board,  somewhat  similar 
to  that  which  exists  in  the  northern  univer- 
sities of  England.  The  standard  of  this 
Board  is  high,  and  a  student  is  generally 
admitted  by  any  of  the  Eastern  universities 
if  he  has  passed  the  examination  under  the 
control  of  the  Board  in  the  subjects  required 


168    University  Education  in 

by  the  college  for  entrance.  Other  univer- 
sities, especially  in  the  West  and  Middle 
West,  and  a  few  in  the  East,  admit  by  cer- 
tificate, this  certificate  being  a  statement  from 
the  headmaster  of  the  school  testifying  as  to 
the  nature  and  amount  of  work  done  by  the 
applicant.  Such  a  certificate,  if  considered 
satisfactory,  passes  the  candidate  into  the 
higher  institution  without  further  inquiry. 
The  examination  conducted  by  the  Board  is 
very  complex,  but  the  wind  is  tempered  to 
the  "foreign"  lamb,  and  foreigners,  of  whom 
there  is  a  very  large  number  being  educated 
in  the  United  States,  receive  concessions  if 
they  can  show  that  they  would  really  benefit 
by  an  advanced  education. 

Within  the  university  the  first-year  men 
are  "freshmen,"  the  second-year  men  are 
"sophomores,"  a  word  which  has  fallen  into 
desuetude  in  England.  Third-year  men  are 
"Juniors,"  and  fourth-year  men  are  "Sen- 


The  United  States         169 

iors."1  There  is  a  considerable  and  rather 
sharp  cleavage  between  men  of  different 
years.  For  instance,  in  many  of  the  luxurious 
clubs  which  in  American  universities,  to  some 
extent,  replace  the  colleges  of  Oxford  and 
Cambridge,  only  "juniors"  and  "seniors"  are 
eligible  for  election.  A  freshman  in  an  Eng- 
lish university  is  apt  to  look  upon  a  second- 
year  man  as  immeasurably  older  than  him- 
self, and  far  more  experienced  in  the  conduct 
of  life.  The  same  is  equally  true  in  America. 
There  are  certain  initiatory  ceremonies  which 
the  freshman  undergoes.  These  vary  in 
different  universities,  and  any  attempt  to 
interfere  with  them  is  futile,  though  they 
are  sometimes  accompanied  with  a  certain 
measure  of  roughness.  But  they  all  tend  to 
weld  the  newcomers  into  a  "class,"  and  a  class 


1  Years  ago  I  was  watching  the  undergraduates  scan- 
ning the  lists  of  subjects  and  of  lectures  at  Princeton  for 
the  coming  year.  After  a  summary  and  an  impressed  in- 
spection I  heard  a  sophomore  say  to  a  freshman,  "If 
we  don't  look  out  this  Woodrow  Wilson  will  turn  our 
Princeton  into  a  darned  educational  institution  I" 


170   University  Education  in 

is  a  very  important  factor  in  American  uni- 
versity life.  If  you  mention  you  are  a  grad- 
uate in  one  of  their  institutions  you  are  at 
once  asked,  "What  class  *?"  and  the  class  dates 
from  the  year  when  you  enter  college.  The 
class  hangs  together  throughout  life.  It  has 
a  periodical  re-union  at  its  old  university, 
when  it  usually  avails  itself  of  the  oppor- 
tunity for  dressing-up  which  is  dear  to  all 
mankind,  but  somewhat  more  suppressed  on 
the  eastern  than  the  western  side  of  the  At- 
lantic. At  one  of  these  re-unions  the  class 
of  a  certain  year  will  all  appear  dressed  as 
cow-boys;  next  year  the  next  class  will  be 
dressed  as  Mexicans,  and  so  on. 

Gradually  the  freshmen  sort  themselves 
into  their  various  studies  and  into  their, 
various  clubs.  There  are  fewer  opportunities 
in  an  American  university  for  the  great  mass 
of  the  students  to  engage  in  athletics,  though 
the  picked  men  are  made  even  more  of  than 
with  us.  As  there  are  no  colleges  such  as 


The  United  States         171 

those  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  there  are 
no  inter-collegiate  competitions.  There  are, 
however,  athletic  contests  between  different 
classes.  The  rigour  of  the  climate  prevents 
outdoor  exercise  during  a  considerable  part 
of  the  year.  Unquestionably,  one  can  play 
in  the  open  air  on  more  days  in  England  than 
in  the  greater  part  of  the  States.  This  to 
some  extent  explains  the  perfection  of  the 
American  indoor  gymnasia.  Even  rowing  is 
practised  indoors  in  large  tanks,  where  the 
boat  is  fixed,  but  the  water  travels. 

Musical  and  Dramatic  Clubs  also  abound, 
and  the  plays  they  produce  are  most  admir- 
ably staged.  It  is  far  more  frequent  to  meet 
an  American  student  with  a  banjo  or  man- 
doline case  under  his  arm  than  it  is  to  meet 
an  English  undergraduate  with  a  similar 
equipment.  Their  play  and  their  music  have 
a  large  part  in  the  unofficial  education  of  the 
young  college  men  and  maidens.  In  most 
of  the  colleges  there  is  a  permanent  outdoor 


172   University  Education  in 

theatre,  like  that  which  Bradfield  has  made 
familiar  to  us  in  England.    • 

The  "unit"  system  is  continued  throughout 
the  university  course.  One  of  the  most  strik- 
ing differences  between  English  and  Ameri- 
can universities  is  that  in  the  latter  there  is 
no  honours  course.  At  Oxford  or  Cambridge 
a  man  reading  for  an  B.A.  degree  can  pass 
Responsions  and  "Mods"  or  the  "Previous," 
and  after  that  devote  himself  to  an  intensive 
study  of  one  subject  for  the  whole  of  his  three 
years.  In  most  of  the  American  universities 
a  considerable  number  of  subjects  are  taken, 
and  these  are  not  followed  very  far,  at  any 
rate  not  so  far  as  in  our  honours  course. 
Another  great  difference  is  that  there  is  no 
one  final  examination  which  admits  to  the 
B.A.  degree.  On  the  elective  system  so  many 
"units"  a  year  are  taken,  and  at  the  end  of  the 
year  the  student  is  examined  on  each  of  these, 
and  these  annual  examinations  count  towards 
the  final  degree.  The  only  difference  between 


The  United  States        173 

the  third-year  examination  and  that  of  the 
first  or  of  the  second  year  is  that  it  is  taken 
in  different  subjects.  Another  difference 
which  is  often  deplored  in  the  United  States 
is  that  the  examinations  are  conducted  only 
by  the  teachers.  External  examiners  are 
unknown,  so  that  the  student  is  apt  to  get  up 
his  teacher's  lectures  rather  than  the  subject. 
All  the  bigger  universities  have  really 
magnificent  clubs,  where  sleeping  accommo- 
dation is  provided  as  well  as  good  libraries 
and  good  dining-rooms.  Some  of  these  clubs, 
such  as  the  Harvard  Club  at  Boston,  are 
very  palatial,  and  most  of  the  bigger  Eastern 
universities  have  stately  club-houses  in  New 
York.  In  many  small  towns,  such  as 
Madison,  where  hotel  accommodation  is 
limited,  the  University  Clubs  offer  a  culti- 
vated and  comfortable  shelter  for  college 
men.  In  others,  such  as  Lexington  in  Ken- 
tucky, the  University  Club  is  housed  in  part 
of  a  really  magnificent  hotel.  Many  of  the 


174   University  Education  in 

students  live  in  dormitories,  or  as  we  should 
call  them,  college  buildings;  but  meals  are 
not  served  there,  and  it  is  still  the  custom 
for  students  to  take  their  meals  at  various 
dining-rooms,  and  many  students  live  and 
board  in  lodgings.  Recently,  however,  enor- 
mous dining  halls,  some  of  them  of  great 
architectural  dignity,  have  been  springing 
up,  and  common  meals  are  served  there  some- 
times to  as  many  as  a  thousand  or  twelve 
hundred  students  at  a  time. 

Attendance  at  chapel  varies  in  the  differ- 
ent institutions.  At  Yale  it  is  enforced,  but 
enforced  by  an  "inviolable  tradition  that  an 
institution  of  age  and  respectability  hands 
down  from  the  past  to  its  youngest  sons. 
The  order  is  not  of  the  faculty  or  powers 
above;  far  from  it.  It  is  the  self-ordained 
task  of  the  undergraduate." 

Those  universities  which  have  the  oppor- 
tunity at  their  doorstep,  are  very  devoted  to 
rowing.  Usually  this  is  on  a  river,  but  at 


The  United  States         175 

Princeton  it  takes  place  on  the  artificial  lake 
already  referred  to,  and  at  Madison  on  the 
charming  lakes  which  encircle  that  very  de- 
lightful little  city.  Track  athletics,  as  the 
term  runs,  is  also  a  favourite  amusement,  and 
the  severity  of  the  winter  affords  oppor- 
tunities for  skating  and  ice-boat  competitions 
denied  to  the  inhabitants  of  warmer  coun- 
tries. Football  is  a  complete  mystery  to 
anyone  who  has  not  made  an  intensive  study 
of  American  sports.  There  are  all  sorts  of 
secret  cries  and  code  letters,  and  the  captain 
directs  the  energies  of  his  team  by  shouting 
mysterious  cyphers  which  mean  nothing  to 
the  outsider. 

After  graduation  the  alumnus  seems  to  be 
even  more  passionately  devoted  to  his  univer- 
sity than  he  was  while  actually  in  residence 
in  it.  Apart  from  the  large  clubs  already 
alluded  to,  there  are  innumerable  associa- 
tions, and  in  every  town  in  America  the  mem- 
bers of  one  university  get  to  know  one 


176   University  Education  in 

another,  and  cling  together  like  brothers. 
The  "class"  system  is  a  profound  help  in 
financing  the  universities.  One  "class"  will 
put  up  a  dormitory,  another  will  erect  a 
new  laboratory,  and  there  is  a  strong  spirit 
in  inter-"class"  rivalry,  which  is  a  great  help 
to  the  financial  management  of  their  alma 
mater. 

There  are  a  number  of  subjects  taught  in 
American  universities  which  are  rarely  found 
in  educational  institutions  on  this  side  of 
the  Atlantic.  Perhaps  the  commonest  of 
these  is  dentistry.  Large  and  fully-equipped 
dental  colleges  flourish  in  most  of  the  en- 
dowed and  State  universities,  and  to  these 

come  men  from  all  over  the  world.     In  the 

/ 

very  heart  of  North  America  you  will  find 
students  from  Australia  and  South  Africa, 
especially  in  the  dental  schools,  where  the 
professors  take  rank  with  those  of  other 
faculties.  Veterinary  science  is  also  much 
followed,  and  in  the  agricultural  schools, 


The  United  States         177 

such  as  Ames  in  Iowa,  they  have  an  extremely 
complete  course  and  fine  laboratories  devoted 
to  the  hygiene  of  the  lower  mammals.  It 
was  at  Ames  we  came  across  a  new  discovery 
in  vegetable  pathology,  which  is  likely  to 
open  a  new  chapter  in  the  history  of  plant 
disease.'  One  of  the  professors  there  has 
definitely  shown  that  the  "curled  leaf"  which 
yearly  destroys  so  many  million  of  beetroots 
is  due  to  some  organism  transmitted  by  an 
insect;  and  although  this  organism  is  ultra- 
microscopic  and  passes  through  the  finest 
filters,  it  evidently  undergoes  some  trans- 
formations, both  in  the  body  of  the  leaf  and 
in  the  tissues  of  the  beetroot.  It  behaves,  in 
effect,  very  much  like  the  invisible  organism 
conveyed  by  the  mosquito,  which  sets  up  yel- 
low fever  in  man.  Similar  experiments  have 
shown  that  similar  causes  produce  a  certain 
disease  in  the  potato.  This  is  conveyed  also 
by  an  insect. 

It  would  take  too  long  to  enter  into  the 

u 


178    University  Education  in 

subject  of  secret  letter  societies,  which  are 
banned  in  some  universities  and  welcomed  in 
others.  There  is  a  notion  that  the  number  of 
"society  men"  in  the  colleges  is  decreasing, 
but  at  Yale  at  any  rate  this  is  not  so.  Forty 
years  ago  only  some  sixty  per  cent,  of  a 
"class"  belonged  to  any  society.  Five  years 
ago  the  percentage  had  risen  to  seventy-five. 
The  initiation  into  these  secret  societies  is 
kept  profoundly  dark,  and  although  the 
members  of  some  of  them  have  distinctive 
pins  or  rings  which  they  wear  upon  their 
waistcoats,  ties,  or  watch-chains,  it  is  consid- 
ered to  be  the  height  of  ill-breeding  to  make 
the  faintest  reference  to  them.  Anyone  in- 
terested in  the  matter  can  obtain  some  in- 
sight into  it  by  reading  the  somewhat  sombre 
and  certainly  prolix  "Salt,"  a  novel  which 
covers  the  ground  of  both  the  "Loom  of" 
Youth"  and  "Sinister  Street,"  but  set  in  an 
American  background.  If  "Salt"  be  a  true 
account  of  what  happens  in  the  admission  of 


The  United  States         179 

a  member  of  a  secret  society  to  his  society, 
it  would  seem  that  our  young  American  bar- 
barians at  play  have  learned  something  from 
the  Red  Indians  of  the  past.  On  the  whole, 
the  students  are  by  no  means  so  noisy  as  they 
were  in  years  gone  by;  and  as  in  the  older 
universities  of  our  land,  the  traditional 
"town  and  gown  rows"  have  almost  disap- 
peared. 

Many  of  the  undergraduates  earn  their  liv- 
ing and  pay  their  way  whilst  passing  through 
college.  Some  of  the  poorer — the  Armenians 
and  the  Greeks — manage  to  scrape  together 
enough  to  live  on  by  pressing  the  clothes,  and 
sometimes  cleaning  the  boots,  of  their  more 
financially-favoured  fellow-students.  Many 
students  make  enough  to  see  them  through  the 
term  by  waiting  at  summer  resorts  in  the  va- 
cations. Sir  Michael  Foster  once  told  me 
that,  returning  from  a  lecturing  tour  in  Cali- 
fornia, he  was  stopping  the  night  in  Seattle, 
and  was  rather  surprised  when  half-way 


180   University  Education  in 

through  dinner  the  youth  who  was  waiting 
on  him,  and  who  seemed  to  become  suddenly 
aware  whom  he  was  serving,  seized  his  hand 
and  said,  "Professor,  I  am  very  glad  to  make 
your  acquaintance !  Many  and  many  are  the 
weary  hours  I  have  spent  over  your  text- 
book." The  waiter  in  this  case  came  from 
one  of  the  Eastern  universities,  and  was  pay- 
ing his  way_  through  his  course  by  waiting 
during  the  summer  in  Seattle.  Others  take 
care  of  some  rich  man's  grounds,  or  stoke  his 
furnaces.  There  is  a  strenuous  desire  to  get 
a  university  degree,  and  men  will  sacrifice 
half  their  time  to  make  enough  money  to 
spend  the  other  half  in  preparing  for  their 
examinations.  Another  class  often  become 
secretaries  or  stenographers  to  the  presidents 
or  professors,  and  there  is  not  that  shyness 
in  committing  the  conduct  of  the  university 
politics  to  the  students  that  obtains  with  us. 
Many  obtain  a  livelihood  by  editing  college 


UNIVERSITY  of  CALIFORNIA 

AT 

LOS  ANGELES 
LIBRARY 


3  1158  00729  3797 


The  United  States 


181 


papers.    Some  of  them  not  only  edit  the  jour- 
nals, but  set  the  type  and  print  them. 

There  are,  at  present,  nearly  five  thousand 
foreign  students  studying  in  American  uni- 
versities, and  now  that  these  institutions  are 
making  good  in  so  many  ways,  one  cannot 
but  feel  that  the  verse  of  Miss  Mary  Cole- 
ridge will  become  truer  in  a  wider  and  larger 
sense: 

"We  were  young,  we  were  merry,  we  were  very, 

very  wise 

And  the  door  stood  open  at  our  feast, 
When  there  passed  by  a  woman  with  the  West  ia 

her  eyes, 
And  a  man  with  his  back  to  the  East." 

For  a  while  the  world  will  wend  west- 
ward. 


